Gu Fan has been a little irritable recently because of the Japanese.

After the revolution in the Qing Empire began, the Nanhua Navy was always in a state of combat readiness, with at least four main battleships on standby at the Ryukyu Naval Port or the Machen Naval Base.

The purpose was to deter the Japanese so that they could not interfere with the revolutionary process of the Qing Empire.

However, the deterrence operation cannot be said to be completely successful. Japan did not actively intervene, but with the support of the Americans, it accepted the Qing Empire's request for help and provided mercenaries.

From that time on, Nanhua continued to send naval fleets to harass Japan. At first, the Japanese navy sent some warships to deal with it, but later it simply formed a large fleet and stationed it in Sasebo to counter-deter Ryukyu.

This approach angered the young navy faction, and the radical officers maneuvered their ships to approach Sasebo and directly confronted the Japanese combined fleet.

At first, the Japanese only dared to stay in Sasebo, but last month, the situation changed.

The two newly built battleships of the Japanese were delivered. The Japanese combined fleet has eight new and four old, twelve battleships, and six armored cruisers, bringing the number of capital ships to eighteen.

Among them, the two newly commissioned battleships are equipped with 356 mm main guns, corresponding to the Xuchang class and Arabia class.

The number of eighteen battleships gave the Japanese confidence and greatly enhanced their ambitions.

Nanhua only had six battleships. During the war, Japan was able to form a three-to-one numerical advantage. In terms of quality, the two 356mm battleships seemed to have evened the gap between the two sides.

Japan once made a plan to eliminate two or three battleships of Nanhua at the expense of old battleships and armored cruisers.

The plan was leaked as expected. Gu Fan didn't know whether the plan was true or false, but he had to treat it with caution.

If the truth of the matter is true, even if the Japanese fleet is severely damaged, it will be a relatively big loss for Nanhua.

After all, Japan only needs to consider South China, while South China also needs to consider the Indian Ocean, North Pacific, Persian Gulf, etc.

Therefore, Gu Fan suppressed the young officers and gradually reduced the threat to Japan, hoping to ease the relationship and buy time.

Of course, Gu Fan did more than just that. He also ordered naval warships to perform maintenance in turns, recall battleships stationed in the Persian Gulf and Hawaii, inventory war supplies, etc.

No matter what Gu Fan thinks, no matter whether Liu Yiming wants to fight or not, Nanhua must make a tough response - concentrating the fleet, which can be said to be preparing for war to a certain extent.

"Commander!" Gu Fan walked into the reception room and found that Zhao Jiaxing was there, so he immediately saluted.

Although Zhao Jiaxing is the commander of the Navy, since the Navy General Staff got on track, Zhao Jiaxing has long been idle.

That is to say, he could not choose a candidate to take over as commander, and there was no suitable place to go, so he continued to stay in this position.

Gu Fan is not qualified enough. Moreover, he has gone to the Naval Headquarters, and the Naval General Staff does not have a suitable person in charge.

Should the headquarters and staff shoulder the responsibility? Then the power of the navy would be too concentrated, and the significance of the staff would be gone.

"You're here too?" Zhao Jiaxing asked in surprise.

"Your Majesty asked me to summarize the situation of the navy." Gu Fan nodded and looked at Zhao Jiaxing with some surprise.

Zhao Jiaxing used "ye", which proves that Zhao Jiaxing may know the purpose of coming today, and also proves that Liu Yiming does not simply want to know the current situation of the navy.

"Commander Zhao, Chief of General Staff Gu, Your Majesty, please come in." Before Gu Fan could make a subtle move, Wang Linhai arrived.

"We'll go there immediately." Zhao Jiaxing left the sofa and nodded to Gu Fan.

Zhao Jiaxing is very happy recently. After the General Staff Headquarters is on track, he is no longer involved in the daily work of the Navy.

After being freed from his busy work, he has been keeping an eye on the development of the naval industry and new equipment.

Recently, several navy-related projects that he had been eyeing had achieved breakthroughs. After Liu Yiming learned about it, he immediately asked him to come back from the Taiping Bay Fleet Base and report the situation to him.

He arrived in Chang'an last night and came to the palace early this morning to see Liu Yiming. However, he arrived early. Liu Yiming was still discussing China's transformation plan and industrial plan with Xu Hui, so he could only wait.

Unexpectedly, during the half hour of waiting in the reception room, his subordinate, Chief of General Staff Gu Fan, who is responsible for the daily operations and operations of the Navy, also arrived.

Although Gu Fan had no special expression when he came in, Zhao Jiaxing was keenly aware of the fatigue on Gu Fan's face, which proved that something happened recently, and it was probably not a good thing.

They originally wanted to ask, but Liu Yiming's secretary let them in.

"Just wait for a while, we will find out eventually." Zhao Jiaxing thought excitedly.

"Your Majesty, the Navy Commander and the Chief of General Staff are here." After a short journey, they arrived. As usual, Wang Linhai opened the door first, and only after getting Liu Yiming's permission, the two of them walked in.

When I walked into Liu Yiming's office, I found that the daily office work piled with books and documents had now turned into a large map.

Both of them are senior military officers. Although Zhao Jiaxing does not have a diploma from a formal military academy, he has received systematic teaching in private and is very sensitive to maps.

The two of them could tell at a glance that this was a map of East Asia and Southeast Asia, and it was mainly a sea map. It did not show the whole picture of China, only the coastline.

Seeing this, Gu Fan subconsciously judged that Liu Yiming was going to take action against Japan.

Because this is a military map, a military map must have targets. From the map, the target can only be Japan.

Of course, these places include not only South China and Japan, but especially the Southeast Asian part, there are also British Borneo, Malaya, French Indo-China, etc.

However, it was impossible for South China to take the initiative to launch a war against Britain and France at this time, especially after South China refused to establish further diplomatic relations with Germany.

"Here you come? Gu Fan is here to arrange the layout of our army. You can sit down for a while and sort out the documents." Liu Yiming took out a pile of chess pieces.

Each flag is in the shape of a battleship, painted in a different color according to the division of battleships, cruisers and destroyers.

Of course, there are too many destroyers, and one destroyer piece represents a destroyer squadron, six destroyers.

After sorting it out for a while and arranging Nanhua's navy, Liu Yiming took out another document and handed it to Gu Fan, and at the same time took out another bag of chess pieces.

These flags are not much different from the previous ones, including the color, except that a small flag is placed on the chess piece - the Japanese plaster flag, which represents the Japanese warship.

"This..." Gu Fan was stunned after opening the file.

Because the document records in detail the Japanese Navy’s combat force deployment, warship officers, etc. as of August 10, and some even have the basic parameters of the warships.

"It was provided by the intelligence department. It has just been sorted out and has not been sent to you yet." Liu Yiming said casually upon seeing this.

Gu Fan nodded and silently placed the chess pieces.

However, his speed was much slower, even slower than Liu Yiming's. The reason was that he was reading the information while posing, but the more he read, the more he became fascinated.

"Okay, Jiaxing, you come too." Liu Yiming didn't care about Gu Fan's "lazy" behavior, clapped his hands and shouted to Zhao Jiaxing.

"There are only three of us today. It is a secret meeting. The theme of the meeting is how to quickly eliminate the Japanese naval power at the lowest cost." Liu Yiming said.

"Japan?" Gu Fan, who was informed, showed no unnecessary expression, while Zhao Jiaxing, who was unaware, nodded after speaking.

"I need to teach these dwarves a lesson, otherwise they will always be disgusting people jumping up and down." Zhao Jiaxing said while looking at the map.

"First, tell me about the situation there. Whether the submarine can be put into combat, how long it will take, and what is the reliability assessment?" Liu Yiming asked.

"I personally experienced the test of the No. 11 submarine, and I think it can be put into actual combat use." Zhao Jiaxing took out a stack of photos.

Gu Fan took the photo with some confusion. He knew about submarines. After all, this kind of weapon has been around for a long time, and it can be traced back to 1850.

Submarines also exist in various countries, including Japan. Nanhua also imported some submarines or technologies from France and Germany. Gu Fan knew about it, but did not pay special attention to it.

After all, at this time, almost everyone, and all navies, believed that submarines could not play a role in war, including reconnaissance.

After all, submarines are weapons that use torpedoes as their main attack method. They are powerful but slow.

How slow is it? Even if it is sailing on the water, a single submarine cannot catch up with the enemy fleet advancing in formation.

They just launch torpedoes, but torpedo boats can also run fast and have mature technology.

Submarines can also play a role in defending against ambush warfare.

"Is it the 16th generation? Where are the technical data?" Liu Yiming asked in surprise.

It has only been more than ten years and it has already reached the 16th generation. Isn’t it too fast? Are they all small boats of one to two hundred tons?

"Sixteenth generation, there are actually only five ship types. Based on improvements based on the ship type, there is a certain gap in technical data, so it is defined as a generation."

"The six we built before are the third type of improved ship type and the tenth generation submarine, used for training." Zhao Jiaxing explained.

"The fifth ship type takes into account ocean cruising and fleet operations, and the hull length has been greatly extended to 70 meters, with a width of 5.71 meters and an underwater displacement of 989 tons."

"Equipped with two dedicated compact diesel engines and two electric motors, the submarine mainly relies on electric motors for underwater operations and is used for surface navigation."

"The underwater speed is 9.7 knots, the water cruising speed is 16 knots, and the fastest surface speed can reach 23 knots to ensure that it can follow the actions of the large fleet."

"A special oxygen generator has been added, which can stay underwater for up to thirty-six hours. However, the submarine's battery is only enough for six hours of navigation. The technical department is developing new batteries."

"In terms of weapons and equipment, it is equipped with a 50-caliber 76mm deck gun with 200 rounds of ammunition.

Five 533 mm torpedo tubes, four in the front and two in the rear, with sixteen rounds of ammunition, three in the front tube and two in the rear."

"Endurance, the theoretical range is 7,000 kilometers when fully refueled, and a refueling pipe is reserved for rapid refueling at sea to ensure endurance."

"Submarines are relatively secretive. During the confrontation experiment, I personally participated in submarine operations and hit moving targets many times."

"In short, I think that as a mature war machine, submarines can be put into actual combat and achieve unexpected results."
Chapter completed!