Seven Seas Beacon Fire

If Li Che used an almost psychological manipulation approach to persuade the Gallic navy to increase the size of its main fleet, then his performance against the Syracuse navy was more like Zhao Benshan selling crutches – he would try to fool them as much as possible.

In short, his goal was to muddy the waters so that when negotiations resumed, both Victoria and Colombia would find that Gaul and Syracuse were demanding a larger fleet size. It would then be logical for the Tang Dynasty to also request an increase in its tonnage share. At that point, the Tang Dynasty, Gaul, and Syracuse would become each other's allies, determined to teach those two "clever" people who wanted to circumvent treaty restrictions through their allies a lesson.

Chapter 296 10:10:10

"What on earth is going on? Wasn't there a little disagreement between us, Victoria, and the Tang Empire? How come, just a week later, even Gaul and Syracuse are causing trouble?"

Colombian Navy Admiral Hillary A. Jones, after concluding today's meetings, returned to the lounge prepared for the Colombian delegation. Somewhat angrily, he ripped off his military cap and slammed it onto the sofa. Admiral Jones's mood was like that of a programmer who, after a week of fixing code, discovered dozens more bugs.

Moreover, these unexpected demands are just like bugs; you never know where they come from!

"Yes," the Secretary of State, head of the U.S. delegation at the naval conference, said with some frustration, "Our differences with the Victorian Empire aren't that significant. After all, we've reached a consensus on the equal shares between our two countries. Aside from that, our only disagreement is on the size of the navies retained in Yingzhou and Bharat, which is actually quite easy to resolve..."

“It is indeed easy to solve. Either we can add two more capital ships to the Bharat Navy, or we can make Yingzhou give up the two royal shares that have been burned. Either way, we can reach a new consensus with the Victoria Empire,” Admiral Jones continued. “However, the Tang Empire is now demanding that the shares obtained by the Yingzhou and Bharat navies affect the regional balance, and they are also demanding that the naval tonnage shares be consistent with ours and the three Victoria countries, in exchange for allowing Bharat and Yingzhou to retain their tonnage.”

"If it were only the Tang Empire making such a request, it wouldn't be a big problem. If only they were the only country making such a demand, we could accuse them of maliciously disrupting the naval treaty conference. But now Gaul and Syracuse are also demanding a larger share. I really don't know what these two penniless countries are up to. But the result of these two idiots' actions is that now there are actually three countries demanding a larger share, and we and the Victoria Empire only have two votes, 3:2... Now our situation is somewhat awkward."

An awkward silence fell over the room until a young official asked with some curiosity, "Why can't we just give it to them directly? The core of the Tang Empire's demand is simply to increase their share from 8.5 to 10. This increase translates to less than 9 tons of additional tonnage, but the Yingzhou Navy can obtain more than 17 tons. We should be the ones with the advantage."

In the eyes of this young official, this matter should be a simple math problem. Obviously, 17 tons is greater than 9 tons. By doing the subtraction, we can see that the Colombian Navy will ultimately benefit.

Faced with the young man's question, the others in the room exchanged glances before finally speaking. It was none other than McGiffin, who had barely spoken since entering the room: "Maintaining the same tonnage share as the Victorian Empire is itself a very strong political signal. If possible, it's best not to give them such a strong political signal casually, understand?"

"A strong political signal?"

"Of course, otherwise do you think our previous arguments with the Victorian Empire were really just about the difference in tonnage between 9 and 10? This same tonnage share is like the Imperial Seal of the State passed down through thousands of years in the East, or like the Sword of Arthur waiting to be drawn in Britain. If someone were to possess these things, then in ancient times, what that person would have obtained would be far more than just a stone or an iron sword, understand?"

The young man nodded, seemingly understanding, and then realized that the Victorian Empire's decision to allow other countries to have the same share was not simply a matter of being "equally number one." As the maritime hegemon of the previous era for a century, this transcendent status of being "equally number one" was itself part of the deal.

The United States of Colombia certainly did not want the Tang Dynasty to also obtain the same special status that it had worked so hard to achieve. After all, in its internal propaganda, Colombia had portrayed the Tang Empire as a "world war loser who was lucky enough not to be completely defeated." Such internal propaganda was naturally part of the traditional Germanic philosophy of the West.

While this propaganda wasn't entirely misleading to some extent, if the Tang Dynasty had secured the same tonnage share as the Victorian Empire and the United States of Colombia, then in the eyes of uninformed ordinary people—you're calling the other side, which has already achieved equal status with the Royal Victorian Navy, a loser?

The Royal Victoria Navy may decline in the future, but you absolutely cannot ignore its current strength.

“However, I think it will be difficult for us to stop the Tang Empire. It seems that they are now in cahoots with Gaul and Syracuse. Have they had any close contact in the past week?” McGiffin said, turning his gaze to the head of the Naval Intelligence Bureau. The head of the bureau had obvious dark circles under his eyes and looked haggard, as if he had not rested well.

Faced with McGiffin's question, he immediately saluted: "We have deployed a surveillance team around the Jingyuan. This team works in shifts 24 hours a day. We can confirm that the main participants from the Tang Empire have not had any formal contact with people from other countries in the past week, except for visiting the officers' club and a few local restaurants on the island of Hawaii. Only Lieutenant General Gattuso of Syracuse visited the Jingyuan."

"Could it be that the Syracuses are pulling the strings behind the scenes? What are they after? They seemed to have tried to get a loan from us to complete the construction of the Caracciolo-class battleships, but now it seems they're even giving up on that."

"I wonder if there's any contact or communication between Syracuse and Gaul?"

"I'm not sure about that. We're short-staffed on the island right now, so we didn't assign any personnel to the delegations from Gaul and Syracuse before this."

"Manpower shortage? What kind of work are you doing? How come you're so short-handed?" Admiral Jones was unaware of the details of the previous codebreaking work, so he was somewhat dissatisfied with the work of the Naval Intelligence Bureau.

“We previously organized a team to try to decipher the radio communications between the Tang Empire’s negotiating team and the domestic authorities, hoping to find some clues from their communications.” McGiffin then took the initiative to explain on behalf of the Naval Intelligence Bureau. He then turned to the people in the Naval Intelligence Bureau and asked, “Speaking of which, so much time has passed. Have you made any progress in your code-breaking work?”

It would have been better if he hadn't asked. After the question was asked, the head of the Naval Intelligence Bureau visibly became embarrassed. After hesitating for a moment, he could only bite the bullet and say, "We did decipher some content, but this content... is basically of no help to us."

"Not helpful at all?" Admiral Jones's tone rose. "You're not new to intelligence work; it's not only treaty-related information that can help us. Related information can also be helpful..."

"The telegrams we deciphered were mostly love letters written by that imperial grandson to his imperial grandson's wife."

"what?"

"What I mean is, the telegrams we deciphered were basically love letters that the Crown Prince wrote to his lover. Some of the language was even a bit explicit, but the content had nothing to do with the treaty." The words of the head of the Naval Intelligence Bureau plunged everyone in the room into a long silence.

"So many telegrams these past few days, all of them love letters?"

"At least based on our current deciphering results, they are basically all..."

After another moment of silence, Admiral Jones shook his head, somewhat puzzled: "Are they Gauls? Even if they were Gauls, they wouldn't be like this, would they?"

“Stop listening to the radio. It seems they’re deliberately playing a trick on us.” After saying this, McGiffin went to the Secretary of State’s side: “Your Excellency, under the current circumstances, I believe we can agree to the demands of the Tang Empire, Gaul, and Syracuse.”

"Leaving aside Gaul and Syracuse, the Tang Empire is now demanding the same tonnage share as us and the Victorian Empire."

“Then give them to them, but the Yingzhou Navy must retain a tonnage quota of 6 ships.”

"But.........."

"From the current perspective, the current result is not a loss for us. The total tonnage of the Yingzhou Navy's battleships and the large light cruisers under construction exceeds 17 tons. Moreover, there are two battleships with a displacement of over 25,000 tons that need to undergo the same kind of conversion work as the Ship of Theseus. In addition, each of the old battleships has a conversion displacement of 3000 tons. In other words, we can actually build two new battleships with a standard displacement of almost 3 tons."

This is a real boon for us. Although these two new battleships need to be built by Yingzhou itself, we can provide them with some blueprints and technical support behind the scenes. I've inspected Yingzhou's shipbuilding industry, and as long as they have the experience, their facilities are fully capable of building capital ships of this size.

The Secretary of State finally nodded slowly; McGiffin's final remarks had successfully persuaded him.

-------------------------------------

After two more days of discussions, the countries finally reached an agreement on the first and most important issue since the start of the naval treaty conference—namely, the share of capital ships to be retained by each country.

维多利亚帝国、哥伦比亚合众国、大唐帝国、高卢王国、叙拉古王国这5个国家之间所保留的海军主力舰总吨位之比为10/10/10/4.5/4.5，而除了这五大海军强国之外，瀛洲和巴拉特海军的吨位分别单独和哥伦比亚还有维多利亚两国按百分比计算。

Among them, the Yingzhou Navy's tonnage was equivalent to 30% of that of the United States of Colombia, while the Balat Federal Navy's tonnage was equivalent to 20% of that of the Victorian Empire.

Among them, Yingzhou Navy can complete the large-scale overhaul of two King-class battleships. However, regarding Columbia's behavior of letting its ally exploit the loophole by using the Ship of Theseus, although Bharat Navy has a smaller tonnage share than Yingzhou, Bharat Navy can choose to build capital ships with a tonnage of no more than 35,000 tons and a gun caliber of no more than 15 inches in 10 years to replace the two dreadnoughts. At that time, some key subsystems of these two replacement ships can be purchased from other countries.

At the same time, the treaty also imposed special restrictions on the so-called super capital ships that the three superpowers could retain—the Big 12. This was mainly a restriction on the battleships that the Victorian Empire claimed had just laid down their keels and started construction, because the Victorian Empire's new generation of battleships was far too incomplete, unlike the Dragon Abyss, or the South Dakota and Lexington, whose main technical specifications were already quite clear.

To prevent the Victorian Empire from creating a super-performance monster through unlimited resource accumulation, the tonnage of these two battleships was ultimately limited to no more than 43,000 tons and no more than nine 18-inch main guns, based on discussions among various parties and the technical specifications claimed by the Victorian Empire. This is the "wired performance monster" that the Victorian Empire has been striving to achieve.

After all, apart from the two ships currently under construction, the largest caliber of all other warships in the Victorian Empire is only 15 inches. In terms of the number of capital ships with 16-inch or larger calibers, it is less than that of the other two countries. In addition, the Victorian Empire claims that it has not developed 16-inch naval guns and that its new generation of naval guns is only 18 inches.

In summary, considering the concessions made by the Victorian Empire regarding its tonnage share in the Bharat Navy, the Victorian Empire successfully secured the most powerful paper performance figures of the treaty period as a form of balance and compensation.

Chapter 297 Digging a Hole on the Issue of Aircraft Carriers

Before the relevant clauses regarding the tonnage of capital ships were finalized, an officer of the Royal Victorian Navy suddenly remembered another inconspicuous event that had been almost forgotten, but which had a huge impact on the balance of power between the navies of various countries.

That is the battleship main gun replacement plan that the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty and the Navy of Colombia are carrying out or preparing to carry out.

Unlike the Royal Navy of Victoria, which currently uses twin-gun turrets on all its main warships, both the Royal Navy of China and the Navy of Colombia have a large number of warships using triple-gun turrets.

These capital ships using triple-gun turrets can be refitted with larger-caliber twin-gun turrets during the refit process. For example, the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty currently has three Haiting-class battleships undergoing refits. All of these battleships have had their 280mm triple-gun turrets removed and have begun to replace them with twin-gun 330mm turrets.

However, these warships were actually the least important part, because the main warships of the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy, such as the Kaiyuan, Jingyuan, and Dingyuan, all used the same type of 330mm turret, which differed only in the thickness of the armor.

因为唐军所采用的三联装330毫米炮塔，并不是像哥伦比亚海军的那些标准战列舰的三联装14英寸炮塔一样是共鞍炮，所以唐军的330毫米炮塔在口径要小一寸的情况下尺寸和重量并不比哥伦比亚海军的14寸炮塔更小，但这也意味着理论上三联装330毫米炮塔具备同哥伦比亚海军三连装14英寸炮塔相当的升级潜力。

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy of Victoria had just received information from various sources that several Colorado-class battleships were preparing to replace their emergency 15-inch turrets with 16-inch guns.

This was absolutely unacceptable to the Royal Navy of Victoria—if all of your ships were to replace their triple-mounted turrets with twin-mounted, larger-caliber guns, wouldn't the Royal Navy's fleet of 15-inch guns become a laughingstock?

Therefore, the Royal Navy of Victoria strongly demanded an immediate halt to this gun replacement modification.

“I thought they had forgotten about this.” Li Che looked at the Royal Navy officer who had spoken loudly, and couldn’t help but turn to Xu Yueming beside him and ask, “Qian Guang, what do you think?”

"For us, it doesn't matter whether we modify it or not. Everyone except the Victoria Empire has capital ships with multiple turrets of twin or more guns. Therefore, when everyone can exploit a loophole, then in fact, that loophole no longer exists."

However, I suspect the Colombian Navy will require warships from other countries that are already undergoing gun replacement to complete the process, while those that haven't will be prohibited from changing their guns after the treaty is signed. This would essentially mean they're replacing 15-inch guns with 16-inch guns, while we're merely replacing 28-inch guns with 33-inch guns. In that case, the Colombian Navy would gain an even greater advantage.

Li Che nodded affirmatively; Xu Yueming's view was exactly the same as his: "If that's the case, we're going to suffer a small loss..."

Sure enough, before they had even finished speaking, the Colombian representative stood up and immediately proposed the solution that Xu Yueming had just guessed—it was clear that the United States of Colombia had made two preparations. If no one discovered the trick of exchanging cannons, then they would exploit the loopholes in the treaty to exchange cannons in bulk; if someone did discover it, then they would put forward this proposal, and everyone would compromise.

It can only be said that these Colombians are far more skilled in this area than in their warship design expertise.

At this moment, almost everyone's attention was focused on the Tang Dynasty delegation. In other countries' delegations, the head of the delegation would usually make the decision and express their opinion. However, on the Tang side, whether it was Sa Dingming or Wei Wei, after exchanging glances or whispering briefly, they all turned their attention to Li Che.

"Is the United States of Colombia planning to upgrade its four battleships, which are currently equipped with 15-inch guns, to 16-inch guns? If so, your country will have a total of eight battleships equipped with 16-inch guns. I think this might affect the balance of power among the navies of various countries."

"The purpose of signing this treaty here is for everyone to put the brakes on the overheated arms race in the navy, not to seek balance," Admiral Jones said bluntly from his seat. "Moreover, it's not just our country that's replacing its artillery; your country is also replacing its artillery, isn't it? Your country has upgraded its 280mm naval guns to 330mm, and our country has upgraded its 15-inch naval guns to 16-inch. Aren't we doing roughly the same things?"

With our Colorado-class battleships using 15-inch guns, they still possess a firepower advantage over your upgraded Seahawk-class battleships' 280mm guns. Even after both sides upgraded their artillery, the performance gap between them did not widen further. Therefore, I believe this will not change the balance of power between our two countries.

"Admiral Jones, you must be joking. After the Colorado-class battleships were fitted with 16-inch guns, they truly possessed performance that could overwhelm all of our capital ships except for the Longyuan. You're avoiding mentioning this point, only focusing on the gap between the warships that our two countries are jointly upgrading?" Li Che met Admiral Jones's gaze directly.

"Moreover, your country chose to upgrade four Colorado-class battleships after the war ended, while our country's modification of three Seahawk-class battleships was a wartime decision made before the war ended. If your country insists on completing the modification and gun replacement of the Colorado-class battleships, then we can also choose to abandon the Seahawk upgrade and choose to replace the main guns of the four Dingyuan-class battleships as well. I wonder what Admiral Jones thinks?"

After hearing Li Che's statement from the translator, the group of bearded men in Colombia quickly gathered together to discuss how to respond to Li Che's remarks.

However, Li Che did not give them much time to discuss. After exchanging opinions with Sa Dingming and others, Li Che stood up from his seat and interrupted the Colombian delegation's exchange: "To Colombia and all our friends present, we have just reached a hard-won consensus. So, on this issue that we previously overlooked, I think we can all compromise. Our suggestion is... that the Colombian Navy can complete the gun replacement work on two Colorado-class battleships, so that your country will have six warships equipped with 16-inch guns. However, in some kind of exchange... our country also hopes to receive some compensation."

"What compensation do you want? Negotiations on the share of capital ship tonnage are currently frozen, and we cannot offer your country any additional compensation..."

"We don't want a larger share of capital ships, but we hope to obtain some special permits during the upcoming negotiations on aircraft carriers."

Li Che's words left most of the people in the room confused. Aircraft carrier?

This is indeed a newly emerging type of ship, but no one thinks it can become a force that can influence the strategic landscape of the navy in the future. At most, it is regarded as a relatively efficient means of fleet reconnaissance.

"Your Highness, you might as well put it more clearly."

This time, it was David Beatty who couldn't help but speak up. He can be considered a true pioneer of naval aviation technology in this era. At the end of the World War, David Beatty, as the commander of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, had planned to use several aircraft carriers that the Royal Navy had converted to carry carrier-based aircraft to attack the Leitanian High Seas Fleet in the port. However, the Leitanian Empire collapsed before this plan could be implemented.

"To put it more plainly... our country suggests that future aircraft carriers built by any country should not be equipped with naval guns larger than 10 inches, and the number of 10-inch naval guns on each country's aircraft carriers should not exceed nine. Our country hopes that the aircraft carriers we build can choose two aircraft carriers that can directly use the 280mm gun turrets dismantled from the Haiting-class battleships. Of course, the number of guns will also not exceed nine."

While Li Che was earnestly demanding these "privileges," he was actually struggling to suppress his laughter. He kept telling himself that he should now be a mature politician, professionally trained, and not laugh in this kind of situation.

In another world, Li Che had read many alternate history novels. In those plots involving naval treaty negotiations, many of his predecessors who had transmigrated were happy to exchange the tonnage of their capital ships with other major powers in order to obtain more aircraft carrier tonnage.

After all, a time traveler should know which type of ship will dominate naval battles in the future.

However, there is a flaw in this. Navies and related professionals around the world are not fools. Aircraft carriers are currently only in their infancy, but they are already receiving considerable attention. Under these circumstances, if you further demand a larger tonnage of aircraft carriers, the naval engineers of Western powers will definitely pay more attention to the technological development of aircraft carriers.

However, any time traveler should strive to gain an advantage in the share of aircraft carriers during the negotiations of the naval treaty period. After all, if World War II breaks out in the future, in the early stages of the war, most of the fleet carriers you can use will actually be the carriers that you built and put into service during the treaty period.

This puts us in an awkward situation where we're blocked from both ends.

However, Li Che did indeed come up with a brilliant method without any formal instruction.

That is to take advantage of people's preconceived notions. The more you emphasize something, the more people will pay attention to it. Another preconceived notion in this era is that artillery and warships will still be the absolute core of future naval warfare, while aircraft carriers are just an important auxiliary vessel with a promising future.

However, aircraft carriers are, after all, the largest surface warships below capital ships during the naval treaty era. Whether for self-defense or other purposes, when people are working on aircraft carriers in this era, they are trying to put some cannons on them.

In another world, Mrs. Leigh and her sister-in-law both carried four twin-mounted eight-inch main guns. Akagi and Kaga were also equipped with twin-mounted eight-inch main guns and single-mounted eight-inch gun turrets. The direct reason why these aircraft carriers were equipped with eight-inch guns was that the treaty stipulated that the maximum size of guns that an aircraft carrier could carry was eight inches.

Humans are creatures that tend to become more interested in what you forbid.

Therefore, Li Che deliberately proposed to "limit" the firepower of aircraft carriers. Since it is to be limited, then naturally battleship-level guns cannot be used. However, even if equipped with 10-inch guns, the firepower of such aircraft carriers is enough to suppress any cruiser target.

To some extent, an aircraft carrier equipped with 10-inch guns can indeed be considered a special type of secondary capital ship.

The Tang Dynasty proposed that they could choose two aircraft carriers equipped with 280mm guns. Although they were using old guns, everyone knows that artillery is one of the most valuable pieces of naval equipment. Even old guns can still be very powerful if they are fitted with new shells.

While others could only build aircraft carriers with 10-inch guns, the Tang Dynasty's two aircraft carriers with 280mm guns were practically two cutting-edge mini-battlecruisers.

With this in mind, and with the belief that the Tang Dynasty would definitely make good use of the privilege it had won to build an aircraft carrier equipped with 280mm naval guns, then any country with the capability and determination to develop aircraft carriers, whether it be Victoria or Colombia, would certainly try to find a way to mount 10-inch large-caliber guns on the aircraft carrier!

While the impact of aircraft carriers like the Akagi, Kaga, and Ryougi on aviation operations is not significant, the installation of 10-inch guns would have a tremendous impact on their aviation capabilities.

With three triple 10-inch main guns mounted on the ship, how big can your aircraft carrier's hangar be? How long is its flight deck?

Moreover, he is not afraid that Colombia will not fall into this trap, because Colombia has only successfully retained two Lexington-class battlecruisers. The Colombian Navy's need for high-speed surface gunboats is stronger than that of any other country. Even if they can only be armed with 10-inch guns, they are still an irresistible option for the Colombian Navy!

Chapter 298 Capital Ship Share Finalized

Sure enough, after Li Che deliberately brought up the heavy artillery aircraft carrier proposal, it was obvious that the United States of Colombia was very interested in it.

From the Colombian Navy's perspective, although this would give the Tang Empire two aircraft carriers equipped with 280mm naval guns, the tonnage and size of aircraft carriers are obviously much greater than that of ordinary cruisers. Even a dozen years ago, the first generation of battlecruisers could be equipped with eight 12-inch main guns on a hull of 17,000 to 18,000 tons.

Now, thanks to advancements in propulsion systems, the output of a battlecruiser with similar firepower and armor layout can almost double for the same tonnage. If smaller 10-inch guns are used to replace them, not only can space and weight be saved for hangars and flight decks, but armor protection can also be further improved.

If the tonnage is further increased, it is not impossible to defend against armor-piercing shells fired by 280mm naval guns. Wouldn't such a heavily armed and armored aircraft carrier be able to offset the Tang army's two future aircraft carriers equipped with 280mm naval guns to a certain extent?

In this era, such a heavy-gun aircraft carrier is so reasonable that even the huge pit that Li Che deliberately left in terms of aviation operations would be difficult to detect before the early 30s. After all, in terms of the normal development of the aviation industry, aircraft have only just evolved from the "flying wooden frames" of the World War II era to "relatively sophisticated flying wooden frames". The size of carrier-based aircraft is so small, and the distance required for takeoff is so long. The reduction in hangar and flight deck is not a significant problem in the early days.

The Colombian Navy had absolutely no reason to refuse such a heavy-gun aircraft carrier equipped with 10-inch naval guns. Therefore, after some exchanges, they expressed their approval of the suggestion put forward by the Tang Dynasty. As for the Victorian Empire... the Royal Victorian Navy did not lack high-speed large surface warships like the Colombian Navy. After all, the Royal Victorian Navy's battlecruiser fleet was currently the strongest in the world.

However, after careful consideration of the role of this warship, the Royal Navy of Victoria felt that it was indeed a cost-effective solution. First of all, it only carried 10-inch guns, so it would not pose a threat to the Royal Navy's battlecruisers. The Royal Navy's powerful fast fleet still had the ability to suppress these ships.

For the Royal Navy, this type of warship could be described as an "all-around colonial warship." Its gunnery could suppress almost all cruisers, its carrier-based aircraft provided excellent reconnaissance capabilities, and it could perform the roles of several warships, but the Royal Navy only needed to pay the maintenance costs for one ship…

While such warships might seem to have the potential to become maritime commerce raiders, such missions are essentially something any ship can do by simply firing a few cannons. Even without aircraft carriers, there would be various cruisers. It is foreseeable that in the future, the Royal Navy will be able to rely on aircraft carriers to conduct extensive searches at sea for attack ships that threaten the maritime shipping security of the Victorian Empire. Whether enemy aircraft carriers can detect Royal Navy warships is not a concern for the Royal Navy—because the Royal Navy has never been afraid of being discovered by the enemy. What the Royal Navy is worried about is not being able to find those enemies who are hiding at sea like rats.

More importantly, the 10-inch caliber is truly wonderful. Li Che specifically mentioned this caliber because Victoria, Colombia, and Syracuse all have readily available 10-inch cannons. In other words, if these countries decide to start building such warships right now, they don't even need to develop entirely new cannons.

Although the Kingdom of Gaul did not have 10-inch naval guns, their 240mm naval guns were not far behind. If they felt that the 240mm naval guns were somewhat disadvantageous, it would not be difficult for the Kingdom of Gaul to develop new artillery or enlarge the barrel of the 240mm naval guns.

When all the countries finally agreed on the rules regarding the caliber of the aircraft carrier's guns, Li Che almost wanted to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate on the spot. The trap he deliberately dug was a direct response to Victoria and Colombia. These two countries, one armed with Bharat and the other armed with Yingzhou, could be said to have played geopolitics and balance to a masterful degree. The Tang Dynasty really lacked direct means of countermeasures. With Victoria, they could at least use their old rival, the Gauls, to annoy them. But with Colombia, a country in the New World, there was really no way to deal with them.

For now, it's just a matter of recovering some interest. Li Che is already impatient to wait 10 years to see how Victoria and Colombia will face the well-equipped 10-inch main guns on the aircraft carrier he spent a lot of money building.

The sense of accomplishment from misleading "Little Eagle" into "Kiev" is something that is truly indescribable to outsiders.

With the first phase of the treaty finalized, the warships retained by each country were clearly defined in black and white. First and foremost was the Royal Navy of Victoria, whose total share of capital ships under the treaty was 58 tons. This 58 tons of warships included:

Two Admiral-class battlecruisers (Hood and Anson) with a standard displacement of 41,200 tons.

Two Renown-class battlecruisers (Renown and Repulse) with a standard displacement of 33,500 tons.