The Third Reich: The Return of the King

Chapter 315

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“The Celestial Empire wants to order warships?”

When Mainz heard the news from Ribbentrop, he was quite surprised!

It’s not that he is unwilling to sell warships to the Celestial Empire, but he thinks that selling warships to the Celestial Empire does not make much sense.

Because the Celestial Empire has only one main opponent, and that is the Foot Basin people in the east. The

Foot Basin people’s combined fleet is already ranked third in the world at this time. To defeat such a powerful enemy, the Celestial Empire needs at least 20-30 years of continuous investment and development.

Not to mention whether the Celestial Empire’s regime can be stable for such a long time, even if they can support it for so long, they may not have so much money!

Building a navy requires huge amounts of money, which is not something that poor countries can afford.

Moreover, after the warships are built, The use, training, maintenance and upkeep are also a bottomless pit. Every time a warship goes out, it consumes thousands of tons of fuel.

Moreover, the consumption of ammunition during training, especially the consumption of large-caliber naval gun shells, also requires a lot of expenses. After all, China cannot manufacture these shells by itself.

The cost of maintenance is probably even more expensive. China lacks large shipyards. If there is any problem with these warships, they must be sent to shipyards in other countries for repair.

The countries that have the ability to repair them are basically in Europe and North America, which are thousands of miles away from China’s homeland. The cost of a trip is probably a huge number!

And the most fatal thing is that the foot basin is not They would not give the Celestial Empire such a long time to develop their navy with peace of mind. According to the current situation, the Foot Basin is very likely to launch a war against the Celestial Empire in advance, in an attempt to swallow up the Celestial Empire as soon as possible and use the Celestial Empire as their capital for world hegemony.

In this case, the navy built by the Celestial Empire will either be sunk and destroyed under the siege of the Foot Basin Combined Fleet, or be captured by the Foot Basin because of fear of the enemy and cowardice, and become the Foot Basin’s warships, just like the Zhiyuan and Dingyuan.

It is precisely because of these considerations that Mainz found the Beiyang government’s request somewhat incredible.

For them as a separatist regime, what they should strengthen most now is their army. Only by building a strong army can they expand as much as possible in the civil war. More territory.

Only after having more territory will they have the strength to do other things!

Moreover, compared with the expensive navy, the cost and price of developing the army are undoubtedly much lower, and as long as the army is well equipped, and then hires a few military advisers from Western countries for strict training, they will be able to build a strong army in a few years!

With such a strong army, they have a greater hope of unifying the entire Celestial Empire and ending the warlord separatism of the Celestial Empire!

Compared with such visible immediate benefits and building a navy that is useless and costs money, how to choose, isn’t it obvious?

Why does Zhang Zuolin’s Beiyang government still have such unrealistic fantasies?

“Well, they do plan to do that!”

“What’s the reason?”

There must be something wrong when things are out of the ordinary. Zhang Zuolin is not a fool. In Zhici’s impression, this guy is a very shrewd person. He must have his own reasons for doing this.

“It is said that they want to attack Shanghai and Guangzhou from the sea, wipe out the separatist regimes here, and then block the channels for the great powers to provide aid to the warlords in the Celestial Empire!”

After hearing Ribbentrop’s words, Mainz immediately became interested.

Shanghai and Guangzhou are two important trading ports in the east and south of the Celestial Empire. After the Opium War, the Qing government was forced to open these places to foreigners as ports for foreigners to trade with the Qing government. After decades of development, Shanghai has become one of the largest cities in the Far East after the opening of the port, and even has the reputation of the Oriental Iron Tower City.

Because it is located next to the mouth of the Yangtze River, it is an important port for the great powers to dump goods into the Celestial Empire. A large amount of goods are unloaded here and then transported to the inland via the Yangtze River.

The situation of Guangzhou in the south is similar to that of Shanghai. Guangzhou was opened earlier. As early as the Tang Dynasty, a large number of sea merchants gathered here, making the commercial activities here extremely frequent.

And these busy trades not only bring The warlords entrenched here provided a large amount of tax revenue, and also facilitated their purchase of weapons from the great powers.

The Fengtian warlords had encountered this problem when they went south to attack other warlords. The southern warlords were richer and it was easier for them to raise a team to fight against them. Defeating the opponent’s army might not necessarily wipe out the opponent in one fell swoop. As long as the opponent’s financial resources were not cut off, the opponent could quickly raise another army with the money in his hands.

Therefore, if you want to solve this problem, the best way is to take over the two important trading ports of Shanghai and Guangzhou, and cut off the channels through which the warlords could not get assistance from abroad!

In order to achieve this goal, it is very difficult to attack from land. The Fengtian warlords had already launched a southern expedition in 1922, but they were stuck in the quagmire of war in the Central Plains and were attacked by the Northwest Army and the Shanxi warlords. The Zhili warlords slowed down the pace of the offensive, making it difficult to advance directly to the Magic City area, let alone Guangzhou in the south!

Since the roads on the road were blocked, the Fengtian warlords began to think of ways to launch an attack from the sea, trying to open up the situation from the sea!

Zhang Zuolin originally did not have much interest in the navy, and what changed his mind was the First Zhi-Feng War.

In this war in which the Fengtian warlords failed, they were defeated by the Zhili warlords and retreated to the outside of the Great Wall. As a result, they were fiercely bombarded by the Zhili navy on the way of retreat.

Although the bombardment did not cause too much damage, it shocked Zhang Zuolin greatly, because in the face of the powerful artillery capabilities of the navy, the Fengtian army did not dare to advance during the day, and did not dare to turn on the lights at night. Once the lights were turned on, they would definitely be hit.

The navy’s Haiqi, a 4,300-ton cruiser and three other ton ships. Zhang Zuolin was deeply impressed by the fleet of 1,000-ton Haizi cruisers.

Although the tonnage of these five Haizi ships was not large, the 203mm caliber cannons were incredibly powerful and had a fast firing rate. The Northeast Army was immediately defeated by a barrage of shells, and no one dared to move forward.

So, they did not dare to pass during the day, and did not dare to turn on the lights at night. After several days of tossing, they escaped into the outer reaches of the Great Wall under the watchful eyes of the Zhili Navy.

From that time on, Zhang Zuolin realized how important it was to have a strong navy!

However, at this time, most of the navy of the Celestial Empire was in the hands of the Zhili warlords. After all, after Yuan Shikai’s death, the Zhili got the most benefits, and Zhang Zuolin was not Yuan Shikai’s confidant. His identity was also very embarrassing. He was once a green forest, so he was not very popular with others.

At this time, the Fengtian warlords wanted to form a navy. They not only wanted to attack the Magic City from the sea, but also wanted to break the blockade of their coastal waters by the Zhili warlords, attack the Zhili warlords’ navy’s base, and turn the Zhili warlords’ navy into their own navy.

Because the Celestial Empire of this era did not have a unified regime, the fate of the navy was very tragic. They were basically in a free-range state and had no stable source of military funds.

In troubled times, it was very difficult for a person to survive, let alone a fleet of gold-eating behemoths.

Therefore, in order to preserve this navy, the officers of the Beiyang Navy often changed their posts in order to get more funding to maintain their warships and allow the soldiers on the ships to afford food and live.

Because the Zhili warlords were relatively rich, this navy currently belonged to the Zhili warlord Cao Kun.

His old rival had a strong navy, while he only had some gunboats and old torpedo boats. The difference in naval strength between the two sides was too great, which prompted Zhang Zuolin to think about purchasing warships and developing the navy.

As for attacking Shanghai and Guangzhou from the sea, they would have to wait until they had devoured the navy of the Zhili warlords before they could do so!

As long as they took over the Jiaodong Peninsula and devoured the navy of the Zhili warlords, their navy would be the strongest navy in the Celestial Empire. At that time, whether facing the Zhili warlords or the revolutionary government in the south, they would have an overwhelming advantage. At that time, they would be in charge of the entire southeast coast! _Please download the novel without underline