1890 King of Southeast Asia

Pah, pah, pah…

Looking at the burning wreckage of the freighter, Liu Yiming led the applause with a smile on his face. Hearing Liu Yiming's applause, others in the command room also applauded.

The target ship is not stationary. The navy has repaired its power system so that it can sail at a speed of eight knots.

When the torpedo attack aircraft launches an attack, it is also carried out in a simulated combat manner. When dropping torpedoes, it will make a prejudgment, and at the same time, it must consider the interference of "fleet air defense firepower".

A batch of three torpedo attack aircraft forms a group. When dropping three 381mm torpedoes, its mission will be determined by the location of each aircraft.

Theoretically, no matter how the target ship maneuvers, there will be a torpedo on its route. Of course, a specific hit requires a little bit of luck.

So two batches of six torpedoes can hit three shots, which is already quite good. As for the 60% hit rate? That is the hit rate of a single aircraft hitting a fixed target.

"Very good, your performance is amazing." Liu Yiming turned to Yang Boning and said.

"Their performance also exceeded my expectations. I thought they could hit two at most, but at least one." Yang Boning's face was full of proud smiles.

"One is not bad. At least all the cruisers in service will lose their combat effectiveness after being hit by one, even if it is a light torpedo, and need to return to port for rest."

"Three is enough to sink a 10,000-ton cruiser. I want to see the pilots flying the plane later."

Liu Yiming looked at his smile and couldn't help laughing.

"Of course, they will land on the aircraft carrier later." Yang Boning had no objection. This was originally part of the plan, to comfort the soldiers.

"How much money do you need? Write a report quickly after you go back. This is the best opportunity. It doesn't matter if you spend a little more. We are in a hurry now." Liu Yiming nodded and said.

The dreadnought is a tricky thing. The British had a plan for a full-loaded heavy artillery battleship for a long time. Liu Yiming just got ahead of it.

Then there are the super battleships. When the British were still researching new battleships, Liu Yiming started to rush ahead and invested a lot of resources to build super battleships.

However, whether it was the Xuchang class equipped with 356mm main guns or the Arabia class equipped with 9 350mm guns, but the speed was increased to exceed the cruisers of the same period, the British quickly caught up.

The Java class was Liu Yiming's last effort to develop battleships. Its speed, defense, and firepower have reached a balanced state, and its combat effectiveness is extremely strong.

However, that's it. The battleship has come to an end. What can be done in the future is nothing more than increasing the caliber of the main gun and increasing the tonnage.

But in essence, there is no change. The design ideas, tactics, and dominant strategies of the battleships have no room for improvement.

What does this mean? This means that the naval competition between the Chinese Empire and other countries has returned to the same level.

What changes have battleships made in the decades from World War I to World War II? Larger main gun caliber, higher speed, the only thing worth mentioning is that the full protection plus dome armor has become an armor box plus key defense mode.

Armor box plus key defense, the Arab class has already done it, and although these things can improve the combat capability of warships, they cannot guarantee the absolute advantage of the Chinese Empire Navy.

It is no longer possible to rely on battleships to maintain the naval advantage of the Chinese Empire under the industrial advantages of Britain, France, the United States and other countries.

After all, as long as there is no generation gap in weapons, any quality problems can be solved by quantity. South China has a developed industry, but China has no industry and cannot maintain the consumption of a huge war.

After all, Liu Yiming's target has never been a certain country, and Liu Yiming also believes that when other countries really launch an attack on China, it will not be a country alone.

The British are staring at the Persian Gulf, the Americans are staring at Hawaii, the Russians are staring at the northern plains and ports, and even the so-called ally France is probably coveting Southeast Asia.

In this case, Liu Yiming needs new weapons that can form an asymmetric offensive, and they cannot be weapons with inherent defects such as submarines, so they can only be aircraft carriers.

Therefore, Liu Yiming has always maintained a large investment in military and technology, so that the per capita income of more than 40 million people in South China has exceeded that of the United States, but life is not much better.

Of course, on the original basis, it must have changed significantly. At least normal food, clothing, housing, transportation, birth, aging, illness and death are guaranteed, and some originally expensive goods can be purchased.

However, they still need to work hard. Ordinary workers have to maintain more than eight hours of work a day. Well... now they are working overtime. All factories have endless orders.

There is overtime pay.

In the original South China Empire area of ​​the Huaxia Empire, being a farmer is more comfortable than being a worker. While the income is not too low, it is also more leisurely.

Farmers not only grow food, or food only accounts for a small part of their income. Farmers' income comes more from the planting of cash crops such as sugarcane, palm oil, spices, fruits, and sisal.

The price of spices has always been high. As for the other items, sugarcane is the raw material for sugar production, sisal is the best raw material for ship ropes, canned fruit is a best-selling product, and palm oil is a necessity for industry and food processing. They are all more expensive than rice and corn.

These things were best-sellers during the war.

What about workers? While bearing the risks of work, they also have to endure the bad working environment. For example, steel workers, shipyard workers, and mechanical processing workers all have bad working environments and have to work every day, unlike farmers who can take time to rest except during the busy farming season.

However, workers have higher incomes, have upward channels, and generally live in cities, which attracts generations of young people who yearn for cities and makes them the fresh blood of Chinese industry.

In other areas of the Chinese Empire except Nanhua and Hawaii, workers are the enviable industry because they do not have such superior agricultural natural conditions.

Especially in the Chinese region, farmers live a more decent life than the original beggars.

The world war brought opportunities to the Chinese Empire. A large number of orders brought a large amount of capital inflows, bringing false social prosperity.

When the Chinese Empire was first established, the economic situation was very good, covering up many contradictions. Liu Yiming took the opportunity to start over-issuing currency.

Due to the cash flow and capital inflows brought by the war, as well as the huge size of the Chinese Empire, even if Liu Yiming over-issued 300% of the currency, it was still eaten up by the market and promoted market prosperity.

The huge cash flow brought by the over-issuance of currency can certainly promote market prosperity, which is known to anyone who has a little understanding of economic principles, but this prosperity is very false and will burst with a poke.

Even if no one takes the initiative to poke it, the market will give feedback over time.

Fortunately, there are currently European orders to support Huayuan's credit, and no one doubts the currency's exchange rate, so it can still hold up for the time being.

Of course, hundreds of billions of Huayuan did not only flow into the market. Liu Yiming used part of this money to invest in infrastructure construction and part of it to invest in scientific research.

Scientific research costs money, or it can be said that scientific research is money-burning. It took humans four thousand years to transition from bronze to iron, but it took only sixty-six years from the first airplane to the moon.

In these sixty-six years, three world-class super confrontations broke out in succession, namely World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

All countries or groups involved have been madly investing in scientific research during these years, hoping to obtain weapons that can completely suppress the enemy and win.

In the 100 years from 1900 to 2000, human beings have made more technological progress than in the past several thousand years combined. Wars have driven human beings forward.

Or, human beings' investment in scientific research regardless of cost has driven human beings forward.

The essence of scientific research is a process of trial and error. As long as there are enough resources for scientific research to have enough capital for trial and error, the progress of science and technology is very fast.

100 years is not enough for a species to evolve once. This insignificant time in the long river of history has allowed humans to fly from the blue sky to fly out of the solar system.

Liu Yiming believes that as long as he invests enough in the direction he needs, he can always get what he wants - enough technology for the Huaxia Empire to gain a repressive advantage.

However, trial and error requires costs. Scientific research is about burning money, and it is not burning one by one, but the kind of burning that piles up money and then pours gasoline on it.

The current cost is the cost that Liu Yiming "borrowed" from the future through monetary means. If he cannot "return" this money, then the Huaxia Empire will pay a heavy price.

Currency depreciation, wealth evaporation, business bankruptcy, workers unemployment, market withering, inflation followed by deflation, social disorder, and so on.

Just like the Great Depression.

So, Liu Yiming needs to pass on this cost.

How to pass on the cost?

Sometimes, advanced industrial countries will take financial or technical means to plunder the wealth of backward countries.

But this operation is troublesome and not necessarily feasible, so most of the time, people will take a simpler and more effective way-war!

The Ministry of Finance of the Huaxia Empire has already laid a total of tens of billions of banknotes, brand new, and still with the smell of ink just out of the factory.

This is the money Liu Yiming prepared for the war. The British have agreed to count this money on their heads, which has relieved the pressure on Huaxia.

"Your Majesty, they are back." Yang Boning pointed to the circling plane.

After a while, the planes landed one after another, and the twelve pilots walked down one after another, and were taken to the bridge by the military police.

"Are you the pilot of the first plane to land? What's your name?" Liu Yiming asked the pilot who seemed absent-minded and in a bad mood.

"Hu Feng, report to your majesty, my name is Hu Feng..."