The pressure on Yuzaburo Kato, who was faced with more than 2,000 newspapers a few days ago, was now falling on the entire US delegation. Under the pressure of public opinion, some people believe that the goal of arms limitation has been achieved, and this view is based on the Republican veteran Elihu . Rout as the representative; Another view is based on the Admiralty assistant Theodore Jr. Roosevelt, as a representative, believed that without breaking up the Sino-Japanese alliance, there would be no final victory, and that in the event of a war between the United States and Japan, China's oil, steel, and various raw materials would be continuously imported into Japan, making its war potential increase exponentially. If we do not dismantle them with a resolute determination now, in 20 years China and Japan will surely dominate East Asia and become a deadly threat to the United States on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean.

At the internal meeting on the second day, Theodore Jr. In addition to reaffirming the consistent determination of the Sino-Japanese alliance to dominate the whole of Asia and trigger a war with the United States, Roosevelt also repainted the picture of the "Yellow Peril" inherited from the Mahan era, believing that the Sino-Japanese alliance would "unify the yellow race" and then "sweep the world", and this "wave of colored people" would sweep eastward across the Pacific Ocean, endangering the status of white people and the security of the United States itself.

Mr. Roosevelt's description of the Yellow Peril was exaggerated and specific, which not only did not have the desired effect, but also disgusted other delegates, including Secretary of State Hughes -- for the United States, and indeed for the Republican Party now in power, the end of the world war had caused a massive decline in the American economy, but the rich were paying up to 63 percent of their personal income tax and 73 percent of their corporate income tax, and the Army had been dismantled, A significant part of these taxes is consumed on the Navy's ever-expanding fleet. Thus, reducing taxes by limiting armaments. and reviving the economy is the number one priority of this administration.

Gain the same tonnage as the British Royal Navy, while the Chinese and Japanese navies on the west coast of the Pacific cannot effectively threaten the U.S. Navy. As for the threat that China and Japan will pose to the United States in 10 or 20 years, that is a matter for the Democratic Party and has nothing to do with the current Republican administration.

Theodore Jr. After Roosevelt's speech, Secretary of State Hughes coughed a few times, he looked at Secretary of the Navy Daniels, and asked, "Josephus, are the Chinese and Japanese a threat to us now?" ”

Daniels didn't expect the Secretary of State to ask him this question, and he replied somewhat unexpectedly, "Sir." Over the past year, Japan has been making painstaking preparations for war, and its spearhead is clearly directed against the United States......"

"Shet!" The Secretary of State interrupted him impatiently, "I don't want to know what the Japanese were doing before, I just want to know, with the current tonnage ratio of capital ships, can the Japanese attack Hawaii or San Francisco?" ”

"Sir...... "The Secretary of the Navy is not used to this administration, and he does not know much about Secretary of State Hughes, and he is a little overwhelmed after being rudely interrupted. On one side of the Chief of Naval Operations Robert Brown. said Major General E. Kuhnz. "Sir, if it's just capital ships, then China and Japan don't pose much threat to us, but we're worried about aircraft carriers. Although China has given up the tonnage of capital ships, they still have six aircraft carriers with a total of 160,000 tons, according to the previous draft. We have only 130,000 tons of aircraft carriers, and Japan has 80,000 tons. In other words, the ratio of aircraft carriers between China and Japan is 54 percent......"

"What can an aircraft carrier do? Can it sink battleships? Hughes once again interrupted the Navy's important figures, and at this time, under the pressure of public opinion, he only wanted to know the results. I don't want to listen to the irritating numbers.

"Sir......" Rear Admiral Kuhnz was stunned for a moment, and then said with difficulty: "For the time being, it cannot sink the battleship, but if the aircraft is developed, it will eventually replace the battleship and become a terrible sea hegemon......"

"General, please tell me how long it will take him to replace the battleship?" See the Navy talking about aircraft carriers, Elihue of the Republican veteran stick. Root interjected that he did not want Hughes to be influenced by the admirals who were constantly exaggerating the enemy in order to get Congress to agree to pay more for the navy.

"This ......," Rear Admiral Kuhnz said, was just a trend, but it was supported by a very small number of people within the Navy, even when previous bombing test planes had sunk German battleships. But that kind of static and unresisted bombing did not convince anyone, let alone the old men in Congress.

"Ladies and gentlemen, from what I have learned, planes can hardly do anything at sea except for reconnaissance." Rout took a copy of the information he didn't know where he got it, and said with great certainty, "For a battleship covered with thick armor, the 7.62mm machine gun of the plane is useless, and the bombs and torpedoes may be of some use, but General, can you tell everyone what altitude and speed the plane will descend to if the torpedo is to be dropped?" ”

After Root, he glared at Major General Kuenz, hoping that he would answer the question on the spot, and all the people present at the meeting were bureaucrats and generals with extremely high authority, and Major General Kuenz had to say: "Mr. Senator, as far as I know so far, torpedo bombers must be five meters above the sea surface and cannot reach a speed of more than 55 knots before dropping torpedoes......

"Aha. That's right. Root, who knew this technical detail of the Navy, laughed and said: "Gentlemen, an airplane must fly at a speed of sixty miles, and then drop torpedoes at an altitude of about five yards above the surface of the sea, and such a speed and altitude can only become a living target for anti-aircraft weapons; As for bombs, I've heard that previous tests by the Navy have shown that even against a stationary, anti-aircraft battleship, bombs dropped from an airplane may not be effective in destroying it......"

At this point, a man next to Mr. Root whispered a few words in his ear, and Mr. Senator re-emphasized: "In addition, there is no timely damage prevention on the battleship, gentlemen, it is essential to extinguish the fire and the breach caused by the bomb in time." As far as I know, in the bombing tests conducted by the Navy, it took six days and 107 bombs of 300 to 600 pounds to sink a stationary, unresisted and damaged German-made cruiser Frankfurt of 5,000 pounds......"

"Haha......" The senator's account was very humorous, and everyone in the audience could not help but laugh, and it would take six days to face a 5,000-ton cruiser without resistance. In the face of a battleship with people operating 20,000 to 30,000 tons, it would be unimaginable to blow it up. It is true that aircraft carriers can only take on reconnaissance missions.

"Sir, the current test shows that the aircraft are no threat to the battleship. But with the development of technology, one day the plane will carry a larger bomb...... "Rear Admiral Kuenz argued.

"Excuse me, General, how long will this 'someday' be? Decade? Twenty years? Thirty years? It is important to know that the term of the entire treaty is only fifteen years, and after fifteen years we can revisit the threat of aircraft to battleships. If it really only takes ten years, then what does the Navy need so many battleships for, why not dismantle all of them to build aircraft carriers? Root's rhetorical question left Rear Admiral Kuhnz and the other admirals speechless, because no one dared to abandon battleships and focus on aircraft carriers.

Seeing that the Navy was deflated, Rout continued: "Gentlemen, the economy of the United States is in recession. The only thing that can save him is the eastern market, that is, the Chinese market, which is now undergoing large-scale construction, and the more than five billion dollars in foreign exchange she has is said to want to spend in ten years, and if we do not accept the olive branch handed by the Chinese, then the Germans, the French, the British will replace us and benefit from it.

And China is not Japan, and even if we destroy the Chinese navy, we will not be able to bring it to its knees, and its huge territory and population will require 10 million land forces to completely conquer. Why should we be at the enemy of such a country and give up the business we so desperately need? "Root mentions China's territory and population, Theodore Jr. When Roosevelt was about to emphasize the Yellow Peril again, Root stopped him with his hand in advance and said, "I know what some people are worried about, why do they want to break up the Sino-Japanese alliance. But let's not forget that the way we do now will only make things worse. China and Japan did not intend to be fully united before, but it was because of our pressure. They are now getting closer and closer and at the same time increasingly disgusted with us.

Generals. Have you really thought about the consequences of what you do? Do you know that we are facing two great powers? You know that in this meeting, we are on the offensive side. And are China and Japan on the defensive? Japan, of course, is going to prepare for war, and he, of course, will be directed against the United States, because our naval bases are only a few hundred kilometers from them. Put away your Japanese threat theory, if we step up our persecution, the war will begin tomorrow. ”

Elihu. Rout was a veteran of the Republican Party, and any admiral would look down on him. For the United States, the military is just a servant who wipes the ass of Wall Street, and even if they know that the choice is wrong, the Wall Street bankers will choose a strategy that is good for them and bad for the United States. The United States had a severe overcapacity after the war, and had it not been for the sharp drop in agricultural prices the year before, workers suffering from inflation and unemployment would have gone on a massive strike as in Russia. And the signing of the treaty will not only ensure normal business and trade with China, but also get a piece of the pie from China's huge construction wave -- no American believes that Chinese goods will eliminate American goods, and everyone knows that the best tractors made by the Chinese were actually designed by the Germans, without whom they could not do anything.

The momentum of compromise between China and Japan prevailed within the US delegation, and when the results of the internal meeting reached the White House, the situation became even more optimistic because there were no admirals present, and the 10 members of the capitalist cabinet, with assets totaling more than $600 million, fully agreed with Root's view that China and Japan should not be forced to sign a treaty in accordance with public opinion because of the obvious superiority of the US Navy.

On July 13 of the 11th year of Shenwu, the countries reached an agreement on limiting naval armaments, that is, the ratio of the total tonnage of capital ships of Britain, the United States, Japan, France, Italy, and China was 5:5:3:1.75:1.75:0, and the tonnage of aircraft carriers was 135.000 tons, 135,000 tons, 81,000 tons, 60,000 tons, 60,000 tons, and 162,000 tons. Because there are serious differences between Britain and France on the tonnage of submarines, it is impossible to determine the tonnage of destroyers and cruisers involving submarines, but because the treaty stipulates that the signatories are not allowed to manufacture combat ships with a standard displacement of more than 10,000 tons and a main gun caliber of more than 203 mm, cruisers and destroyers are still subject to certain restrictions.

Originally, the Chinese representatives strongly demanded that the six aircraft carriers be rebuilt within 15 years, but in the end, due to pressure from Britain and the United States, they had to agree to abide by the unified provisions of the treaty and replace them with 20 years of service. That is, in the twenty-third year of Shenwu (1934), the replacement ships of the aircraft carriers Changning and Yongning will lay the keel. In the twenty-sixth year of Shenwu (1937), the new ship was completed, and the Changning and Yongning were disintegrated; In the twenty-sixth year of Shenwu (1937). The keel of the replacement ship of the Anji and Anlan aircraft carriers was laid, and the new ship was completed in the 29th year of Shenwu (1940). Anji and Anlan disintegrated; In the twenty-seventh year of Shenwu (1938), the replacement ships of Anzhen and Ansheng aircraft carriers were laid, and the new ships of Shenwu in the thirtieth year (1941) were completed, and Anzhen and Ansheng were disintegrated.

And the world's first aircraft carrier, the Shenmu, was strongly advised by the British chief representative, Lord Balfour, to get rid of the fate of being demolished on the grounds of historical relics, and it will become a part of the world's naval history as a collection of the Naval Museum after the main gun and half of the boilers are removed. Balfour's purpose was entirely to curry favor with China, and to repay and pay tribute to the great cost China had paid for the Entente, which was of great importance to Great Britain.

A six-nation treaty on the limitation of naval armaments was agreed. The five-nation treaty, which deals with the rights of island dependencies and island territories in the Pacific region, was reluctantly agreed on the day after the six-nation treaty was agreed. Among them, the United States pledged not to expand its military base west of Hawaii, China and Japan promised not to expand its military base in the Taiwan Islands and Amami Oshima, and Britain and France promised not to expand its military base east of Singapore. With the exception of restricting military bases, any dispute between any two of the five signatories on any issue in the Pacific region will be resolved by holding a joint meeting and consultation.

In addition to limiting naval armaments and reconciling conflicts among countries that possess islands in the Pacific, the Washington Conference also had an extremely important nine-nation pact. The core of this was to ensure the principle of 'open door and equal opportunity' proposed by the United States in China, when China was in a state of warlord secession, customs were mainly controlled by the British, and the signing of the Nine-Power Pact was extremely necessary; And now. China is an independent and stable country, and the fact that customs were taken back from the British a few years ago, and that the Sino-US treaty was negotiated and signed during the Paris Peace Conference, was because the United States wanted to reaffirm the principle of "open doors and equal opportunities" in China. However, this principle was immediately rejected by Yang Du with 'tariff reciprocity and trade freedom'.

At this time, the post-war recession of the U.S. economy forced the government to raise tariffs to protect the domestic market, which made Britain, France, Japan and other countries very dissatisfied. The Nine-Power Pact could not be signed at all. Finally, on July 15 of the 11th year of Shenwu. The six-nation treaty on the limitation of naval armaments and the five-nation treaty on Pacific islands, territories, and the settlement of disputes over them were signed at the Independence Hall in Washington, D.C., thus defining the division of power and the rules of the game in the Pacific.

The date on which the treaty was signed. Vice Admiral Kato Kanji of the Japanese Navy wept bitterly, before China had 40 percent of the tonnage of capital ships against the United States, plus Japan's ratio of 9 to 10, he had the confidence to destroy rice animals, but now China has to give up 40 percent of the tonnage of capital ships in order to form an alliance with Japan, which makes Japan have to face the US Navy with 60 percent of the tonnage of capital ships, completely deviating from the previous principle of 70 percent decisive battle between the Navy and the United States; At the same time, he was deeply saddened by Japan's promise that the Chinese islands would not be defended in the Pacific, and that the Americans could build a naval base in Hawaii, 2,000 nautical miles away from the mainland, while China and Japan could not even fortify Amami Oshima and Taiwan, which are close to the mainland.

It was Kanji Kato, who cried out in tears after the meeting, "The war against the United States began today, and Japan must retaliate against it!" After Yuzaburo Kato severely reprimanded him, he angrily left the Shoreham Hotel and went to the residence of the Chinese delegation to have a drink with Yang Du, Liu Guanxiong and others to complain.

The reason for this is not so much that Yang Rui has always emphasized the trend and importance of aircraft carrier operations, but rather that although the Chinese Navy has given up the tonnage of its capital ships, it does not want to dismantle its personnel for this purpose, and the planned 18 10,000-ton cruisers, 48 2,000-ton destroyers, 54 large submarines, and eight 15,000-ton supply ships will require much more sailors and officers than the active personnel, and 100 dismantled submarines and officers and men, the vast majority of which can be transferred to destroyers or new submarines, one destroyer needs two hundred people, and a new submarine needs sixty people.

Although destroyers and new submarines are unlikely to be built in a short period of time, these personnel will not lose their jobs through rotation, and they will spend several years and a half on duty and half on vacation. then receive new warships; But the Japanese Navy was miserable, according to the tonnage of capital ships stipulated in the treaty. She needed to dismantle more than 1,700 senior and mid-ranking naval officers, 5,800 noncommissioned officers, and tens of thousands of sailors. In addition, 80 percent of the vice admirals need to retire, and the most serious is the naval school, which is expected to enroll less than one-fifth of last year's enrollment, and even a large number of students in the school will be withdrawn from school.

The navy of the United States and Britain may be just a profession, but in Japan, the navy is a more important honor than a profession, and the people who were brainwashed by the emperor suddenly lose this honor, which is simply worse than the Dead Sea. It is no accident that the four naval officers in the 15 assassinations were born at this time.

In a few days ago, it was reported in Japan. It is hated that the United States used embargoes, blockades, and wars to oppress the empire to accept 60% of the tonnage of capital ships, and that China completely gave up the tonnage of capital ships to stabilize Sino-Japanese relations is something that every Japanese is sincerely grateful for. As Vice Admiral Kanji Kato, who dared to reach an unspeakable private agreement with the defeated German Navy the year before last and secretly transported the diesel engines of German submarines back to China, began to cry wolf after a few glasses of Moutai wine, he pulled Vice Admiral Liu Guanxiong, a master of thin mud, and shouted to take revenge on rice animals, so that Yang Du and others immediately closed the window and closed the door in case the partition wall had ears.

"The navy of the United States is not terrible, but the industrial strength of the United States is terrible." Looking at the neurotic Japanese in front of him, Yang Du had to repeat his opinion while pouring wine on him. "If we have a strong industrial strength that can withstand a long war, then we have no fear of the United States. There is no fear of the UK. After drinking two sips, Yang Du's head also began to hurt, and the United States and the United States were mixed together, and they couldn't tell the difference between stupidity.

"Nope. If we have seventy percent of the capital ships of the United States, then it only takes one decisive battle to destroy most of the main forces of the United States Navy and then occupy Hawaii. Finally, march into California and force the United States to surrender and pay reparations! Kanji Kato looked excited as soon as he talked about the war. As he behaved in a hurry at the meeting, 'How can he ...... as a samurai with a sword?'

The Japanese are so stubborn. Of course, Yang Du and Liu Guanxiong would not take it seriously, Yang Du turned to look at Kato's adjutant Nobumasa Sueji and asked; "What do you think of this treaty in your country?"

"Shame! This is a disgrace to the Great Japanese Empire!! "There is a kind of lieutenant, there is a kind of adjutant. According to the original history, the chief representative of the delegation, Yuzaburo Kato, died the following year because of the torment of negotiations, and his early death caused the Japanese Navy to split into a military and political faction led by Katsunosuki Yamanashi and Horiyoshi who favored the treaty, and a military order faction led by Kanji Kato and Nobumasa Sueji, who opposed the treaty. Kanji Kato cried bitterly, and the last letter was stabbed and cut the flesh.

Liu Guanxiong was relieved at the moment: "Your Excellency, there is a way to be thirty years in Hedong and thirty years in Hexi, so you don't have to care too much about temporary gains and losses. If the world situation changes again in ten or twenty years, it is difficult to say what will happen to the navy. ”

"The situation has changed again?" Hearing this information, not to mention the last Shinmasa, but Kanji Kato, who was drunk and confused, came to his senses, and Kanji Kato asked anxiously: "How will the situation change?" ”

"There are just too many variables." Liu Guanxiong didn't have much goods in his stomach, but it was enough for the Japanese to fool a tendon, and he said: "Russia, like my country, is building on a large scale, and the plan is not small; Germany also endured humiliation in an attempt to completely get rid of the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles; The navies of your two countries do not have an advantage, and the combined capital ships are only 60% of those of Britain and the United States, but the relationship between the two ten-on-ten sea power hegemons is not at all as harmonious as we imagined. Since the British can betray us and suppress and persuade the United States in order to sign a contract, it shows that he is not so willing to be replaced by the United States.

There are no two days in the sky, there are no two masters in the country, the world hegemon will eventually belong to one country, Britain, the United States, us, and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the key is to see who makes the first move. If we and the United States act first, it will surely benefit from Britain; If Britain and the United States strike first, we will surely gain, and pro-British and not come out is our best strategy at the moment, and your country must not be used as a gun by the British. ”

Liu Guanxiong has been discussing the world situation with Yang Du, and as far as the current navy is concerned, the most worrying thing is that under the instigation of Britain, the contradictions between Japan and the United States will intensify, and then affect China, so Liu Guanxiong has this remark. But the tenacious Japanese obviously did not agree with this, and Kanji Kato said fiercely: "Still pro-British? It is the ...... that the corrupt country betrayed us"

"Your Excellency, the most important thing is that Asia is the Asia of Asians, not the hatred of who and whom. Your country advocates forbearance, can't you endure this for the sake of Asian hegemony? Yang Du interjected, "My country's prime minister said: The world is a chess game, we will never be a chess piece, and we are willing to encourage you together!" (To be continued......)