Seven Seas Beacon Fire

"Didn't we intend to come here before?"

"My dear Crown Prince, please think of some decent names. Tell me, would the old man agree to the names you came up with before?" Zhu Miaoyun was furious. "Let's not even talk about when I was pregnant. Just now, I asked you if you had decided on names for your son and daughter, and you said your daughter would be named Li Shiming and your son Li Jiancheng... What? Do you also want your son and daughter to be fighting each other at Xuanwu Gate in the future?"

"The current Yingtian Prefecture doesn't actually have the Xuanwu Gate..."

"That won't do!" Zhu Miaoyun's voice rose eight octaves: "You need to think of a new name for me. If you can't come up with a good one, then let the old man name it."

“The old man probably named me after one of these two names too.” Li Che spread his hands: “Who do you think I inherited this from? Look at my father’s and my two uncles’ names, do they sound normal? And look at my name, to be honest… no wonder many people say that the old man is a living Cao Cao. Either he had ambitions all along, or he likes to have his own little quirky hobbies.”

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P.S.: Feel free to leave any name recommendations in the comments here.

Leave a message with your real name here

Leave a comment here if you want to do something funny.

Also, I didn't expect my buddy to wake up so quickly.

Yesterday, he had a very high opinion of Gold Coin Khalid, but today, after trying out the Little Life 90B that he had rejected yesterday, he is now feeling itchy.

This guy has now set a very ambitious plan—to organize the open-line queues of several departments.

嗯，这位富哥在刚才已经完成了T72M2+T80UD+2S38 +BMP2M的苏系金币队列，嗯，仙之人兮列如麻。

This is like someone who bought a 90B and then went for a Soviet vehicle. This guy is really rich; he doesn't even wait for half-price sales when buying a vehicle.

Unlike me, I always wait for the half-price sale when I buy premium cars.

And you people, stop accusing me of being a villain who framed you.

How did I get dragged into this mess?

answer me!

Look my eyes!

Chapter 363 Ah, Aircraft Carrier

On the same day that Li Che became a father and his two little ones were born, the second ship of the "Longxiang," the first aircraft carrier of the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy's "Longhuang" class, also held a rather low-key launching ceremony.

In both countries on opposite sides of the Pacific, the first truly large aircraft carrier was completed before the older one. This amazing coincidence was discussed almost 90 years later because of the global popularity of certain types of mobile games, which made people wonder who the older sister was.

Compared to the fact that "Dragon Phoenix" was finally implemented in the game 90 years later, and the card pool revenue topped the charts in 16 countries that month, and the C-site was flooded with fan-made videos, such as "The moment you were born, the entire Pacific Ocean was calling your name" and other highly anticipated situations, the launching ceremonies of "Dragon Rising" and "Dragon Phoenix" a month later were very low-key.

As for why they were so low-key... When the first aircraft carrier of the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy was photographed by the crew of a passing merchant ship outside the port on its way back from sea trials, it quickly caused a stir among the navies of various countries.

Navies around the world are quite surprised by the current form of this aircraft carrier, which had previously been kept highly secret.

Where is your 280mm naval gun?

During the signing of the treaty, the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty received an additional permit to use 280mm naval guns, in addition to the existing restrictions on aircraft carriers. This meant that the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty was the only country in the world capable of building aircraft carriers with a displacement exceeding 3 tons and equipped with 280mm naval guns.

Since this additional clause was a condition for exchange proposed by the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy itself, almost the entire world tacitly accepted that the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy was using this opportunity to acquire two aircraft carriers that were merely a front for something else.

However, when the aircraft carrier of the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy made its debut, people from other countries realized that the style of the aircraft carrier was quite different from theirs.

Whether it's the Royal Victoria Navy's Furious-class aircraft carriers or the Colombian Navy's Constellation-class aircraft carriers, both types of aircraft carriers have gone to great lengths to balance the conflict between large-caliber naval guns and flight decks and hangars.

The design of the Royal Navy's Furious-class aircraft carriers, in particular, is almost the best example of "a designer can do anything when pushed to the limit".

But now you've built an aircraft carrier with a full-length flight deck from bow to stern, where did your 280mm guns go?

Although four main gun turrets are arranged in a negative-back configuration in front of and behind the bridge of this aircraft carrier, it is obvious to anyone with a discerning eye that these four gun turrets seem to be almost identical to the turret models that appeared on the first generation of heavy cruisers that the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty was building.

In other words, this 35,000-ton aircraft carrier is only equipped with 210mm naval guns. Compared to the aircraft carriers of the other two of the three strongest navies, such gunboat firepower is really insufficient.

"What is the Tang Empire trying to do?"

The newly appointed Colombian Navy Minister looked at the photos sent back by his intelligence agents—photos cut from newspapers, for goodness' sake—but he no longer cared about reprimanding them. Why were their intelligence agents obtaining information by cutting pictures from publicly available enemy newspapers? He was now more interested in figuring out what the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty was really up to.

"We are also a bit confused now. The hulls used by these two Dragon Phoenix-class aircraft carriers are the original battlecruisers of the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy. In terms of performance and specifications, they are very suitable for conversion into aircraft carriers. This is a battlecruiser that was originally planned to be equipped with 420mm naval guns. There is no technical difficulty in installing 2 to 3 large 280mm turrets on it. But now it seems that the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy is not prepared to do so."

The head of the Colombian Navy's Ordnance Department has been completely baffled these past few days, as there are differing opinions within the department regarding the new aircraft carrier of the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy.

Some believe that since the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty proposed using 280mm naval guns on aircraft carriers, they would certainly not give up easily. The current state of the "Dragon Phoenix" class aircraft carrier is likely because the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty felt it was inconvenient to install 280mm caliber turrets on a hull that was already quite complete.

Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty will choose to equip its newly built aircraft carriers with 280mm cannons.

However, this viewpoint also met with strong opposition. Opponents argued that the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy's adoption of this configuration for its aircraft carriers only demonstrated that they prioritized airborne operational capabilities over artillery combat capabilities. Furthermore, the idea of ​​equipping future, newly built aircraft carriers with 280mm naval guns was considered utter nonsense.

After all, if you modify a battleship hull, the maximum displacement can be 36,000 tons, but if you choose to build a completely new aircraft carrier, the tonnage limit is 27,000 tons.

This difference is nearly 1 tons in weight, which many designers believe is not a numerical gap that can be bridged by technological advancements or layout adjustments.

In fact, during the discussions within the Ordnance Bureau, more engineers held the second view, especially the younger ones. Most of them actually supported the second view, which was that the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty had likely abandoned the idea of ​​equipping aircraft carriers with 280mm naval guns.

Moreover, from an engineering perspective, almost no warship has ever been able to perform two completely different combat missions well.

Surface artillery warfare and air operations are inherently contradictory. Submarines that operate air operations do not need to face the front-line enemy, so armor is a complete burden. However, if they want to carry more aircraft and launch as many aircraft as possible at once, the warship needs to have the largest possible hangar and flight deck.

However, modern large-caliber artillery must be housed in rotating turrets, which inevitably affects the area of ​​the flight deck and hangar, thus impacting the aircraft carrying capacity and the maximum number of aircraft that can be launched at one time.

When the warships were being designed, the designers already sensed that the design of such heavily armed aircraft carriers was riddled with contradictions that were essentially a battle between the left and right brains.

Therefore, more than half of these engineers believed that this might represent a change in the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy's understanding of aircraft carriers.

However, for the designers of the Colombian Navy, no one of sufficient influence has yet come forward to support this view.

After all, the Colombian Navy's Constellation-class aircraft carrier, which was also recently built, adopts a hybrid design that combines heavy guns and flight facilities. Now, before the ship has even had a chance to warm up, an aircraft carrier without large-caliber heavy guns has appeared. If we accept this as the future direction of aircraft carrier development, wouldn't that mean that the aircraft carrier the Navy just acquired is a burden?

Moreover, the constellation-class aircraft carriers have already been completed. So, given the current state of the constellation-class aircraft carriers, is the entire aircraft carrier construction project a failure?

In particular, if it is acknowledged that the Constellation-class aircraft carriers were indeed misled by the enemy, resulting in their current state, then will it be necessary to carry out a large-scale refit of the new Constellation-class aircraft carriers in the future to restore them to a full-length flight deck?

But this will also incur additional costs. Who should be held responsible for that? With the project ending up like this, is anyone responsible for the consequences?

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Besides the Colombian Navy, the Royal Victoria Navy is also paying close attention to the Royal Tang Navy's new aircraft carrier.

As a true pioneer of naval aviation worldwide, the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom was the first aircraft carrier to be converted and acquired, HMS Whitebeard, which was a carrier with a full-length flight deck. It can be said that if it weren't for the naval treaty stipulating that the maximum caliber guns that an aircraft carrier could carry could not exceed 10 inches, the Royal Navy of Victoria probably would not have thought of equipping its aircraft carriers with heavy guns when designing them.

Especially when those who participated in the signing process of the Honolulu Naval Treaty look back now, it seems that most of the technical restrictions on aircraft carriers were proposed by the Tang Empire itself.

Within the Royal Navy of Victoria, there were those who realized this might be a "conspiracy from the East," but the performance of the Furious-class aircraft carriers was simply too good. Indeed, the Royal Navy of Victoria was very satisfied with the performance of the current Furious-class aircraft carriers, specifically the ones equipped with eight 9.2-inch main guns.

After all, a top speed of 29.5 knots is perfectly capable of operating alongside the fastest battlecruisers, the Renown and Admiral-class, and its 9.2-inch guns can provide a more effective and lethal strike capability than aircraft of that era.

Even the hangar space, which was significantly affected by the two main gun turrets, was not a problem at all in the eyes of the front-line Royal Navy officers and soldiers.

After all, you need to have enough planes before you can think about how to deploy them. A year after the end of World War II, the Victorian Empire decided to establish an independent air force with the same status as the army and the Royal Navy, and also with the same royal title.

After independence, many air force units that originally belonged to the Victorian Army and the Victorian Navy were directly transferred to the Royal Air Force. The Navy not only lost all its land-based air force, but more importantly, after the establishment of the Royal Air Force, the Victorian Empire had to allocate a portion of its already drastically reduced military budget to the Royal Air Force after the war.

The domestic aircraft manufacturers are now naturally rushing to curry favor with the Air Force, prioritizing its needs and orders. Even though the hangars of the three Furious-class aircraft carriers are not large, the Royal Navy of Victoria is currently unable to purchase enough aircraft to fill those three carriers.

Therefore, some officers within the Royal Navy currently believe that although there may indeed be some misleading guidance from the Tang Dynasty, the integrated aircraft carrier model is more advantageous for the Royal Navy at present.

At least these warships are not so dependent on air power. Given that even the Royal Navy Victoria is not fully equipped with aircraft, an aircraft carrier with 9.2-inch guns can still perform many other routine missions even without a full complement of aircraft.

However, in the ideal naval warfare of the future, whether aircraft carriers need heavy artillery, and whether large-caliber guns or the number of aircraft are more important, will probably only be answered accurately in actual use.

In this context, organizing large-scale fleet combat exercises seems to be the only solution to the aircraft carrier problem.

So, also this year, the Colombian Navy decided to organize a large-scale naval exercise called "Fleet Problem". Shortly after the Colombian Navy announced its plans to organize the "Fleet Problem" exercise in the second half of the year, the Royal Navy of China also issued a public statement that it would hold a large-scale naval confrontation exercise codenamed "Rim of the Pacific" in the second half of the year.

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PS:

The Great Quiet has begun again, and this time it will probably be after the 5th before I can resume posting. To be honest, without posting, I don't even have much motivation to read or write.

My favorite part of the day is usually interacting with readers, but now I can't interact at all, and I cried.

Also, let me tell you about my friend who recently joined Antonstar. Today, I played a game with him. My original plan was to pull out my 90B while he was enjoying the delicious 7.1-second reload of the Chinese-made cars, and then show off my 4-second reload.

The 90b car, well, when Chicken Nuggets came to play with me, we played together and had a lot of fun. Towards the end, I felt a bit itchy in my philtrum.

As a result, I died suddenly one after another today. My buddy mocked the Japanese tanks for having no protection, and I couldn't even refute him.

Take a day off

The hospital has adjusted its holiday schedule; I have to go back to work on Monday, so I've lost my three-day holiday QAQ

I had a party with my buddies today and I'm a bit too tired. I was thinking of sleeping in tomorrow since I don't have to work, but I have to go to work tomorrow, so I'm taking the day off today.

There haven't been any posts these past two days, so I've lacked the motivation to write.

Without your witty remarks, I wouldn't have the motivation to write anything!

Here are two images showing the effect of bouncing underwater.

For warships, damage below the waterline is always more deadly than damage above the waterline.

As readers of my previous book know, I personally highly recommend underwater bullets and don't particularly like super-heavy bullets.

Because underwater shells are a very balanced type of ammunition, optimized underwater ballistics are not achieved at the expense of the shell's effectiveness against vertical and horizontal armor under normal circumstances. The topic of super-heavy shells will be discussed in later parts of the story.

Underwater missiles and super-heavy missiles have different optimization directions, but they are essentially working on the "projected area" from different directions. One is from underwater, while the other is from horizontal armor.

However, the main reason I appreciate underwater missiles is that they are a technology that does not require top-notch manufacturing skills. My appreciation for underwater missiles is not because I have any special preference for IJN, but simply because I admire Qian Xuesen's approach of "not seeking the advancement of individual technologies, but seeking the rationality of the overall design" from a technical point of view, just like the MiG-25 and the old Type 99.

To me, the super-heavy bullet seems more like a display of skill by Mi Vinegar during World War II regarding his metalworking capabilities.

Chapter 364 Fleet Problems? Full of Problems! (1)

The fleet exercises that the Colombian Navy is about to hold can actually be traced back to the tradition of the Colombian Navy spending the winter in the Gulf of Columbia every year. This tradition is mainly due to the unique climate conditions of North America where Colombia is located.

Although modern Columbia views its North American continent as a mountaintop city bestowed by God, a vast and fertile land rich in resources, North America, as the only continent in human history that did not give birth to even a Bronze Age civilization, was far from being a desirable place for humankind before the Industrial Age.

The vast, flat, and fertile plains that everyone envies naturally provide a smooth and unobstructed path for cold air masses moving southward from the north! (As everyone knows, "unobstructed" should be read twice.)

In the 21st century, netizens on the internet often make fun of the Yellow River, joking that it is a strict mother, and jokes about the Yellow River are everywhere online.

Elbow Strikes the Plains for 5000 Years

I thought it was at the estuary.

When it's hungry, it will even find offerings to eat.

Eat even if you're not hungry

"He even called for his mother to survive."

The Most Unruly Mother River

Elbow Slaps at Every Dynasty That Neglected Water Management

Paying attention to water conservancy is also important.

..........

However, compared to the cold air from North America, the Yellow River is truly a loving mother. After all, you can always visit the Loess Plateau and Mount Tai around the Yellow River basin, but the cold air from North America can move southward without any rhyme or reason.

It's important to understand that even in the 18th century, Western colonists were able to quietly close all their settlements in North America after just one winter. Such extreme conditions are something that only humans could survive on this land after entering the Industrial Age.

Even so, every winter, in order to avoid the violent blizzards along the east and west coasts, the Colombian Navy would gather its fleet, which roams the two oceans, in ports around the Caribbean Sea to take shelter from the storms.

With the rare opportunity for the main forces of the Colombian Navy from both oceans to gather together, it naturally becomes an excellent opportunity for the various fleets of the Colombian Navy to hone their skills and tactics.

Therefore, in this world, after the Colombian Navy organized several joint training exercises during the winter storm season in 21, and found that the joint training was quite effective, the Colombian Navy officially upgraded this joint training into a large-scale naval exercise codenamed "Fleet Problem" in 22.

Of course, from an outsider's perspective, the more direct motivation behind the Colombian Navy's fleet exercises is probably to rival the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) series of military exercises conducted by the Royal Navy of the Tang Dynasty across the ocean—which happens to be held in the South China Sea during winter.

Admiral Robert Edwards, the newly appointed Chief of Operations of the Colombian Navy, is paying close attention to the Navy's first large-scale adversarial military exercise.

After all, the Colombian Navy's performance in the previous world wars was clearly not satisfactory to the Colombian high command. Although the Colombian Navy won most of the naval battles it participated in by skillfully using journalistic techniques and relying on "White House war reports," it was obvious to everyone that if the Colombian Navy's achievements were really as great as they claimed, firstly, the Tang Dynasty would not have made peace with the Allied Powers in a way that was considered quite respectable by the West, and secondly, the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy would not have been able to acquire so many tonnages in the negotiations of the Honolulu Naval Treaty.

While the war was still ongoing, although the battle lines were not as impossible to fake as many people say, they were indeed more convincing than battle reports in most cases.

Especially in the later stages of the war, when the Colombian Navy was no longer under the assistance of the Royal Victoria Navy and was operating independently, it was clear that there were significant differences in both overall strategy and specific tactics compared to the Royal Tang Navy across the ocean, which had inherited the mantle of the Ming Dynasty Royal Navy.

It can be said that if it weren't for the advantages that the Colombian Navy accumulated in the middle of the war and the generally excellent protective capabilities of the Colombian Navy's standard battleships, the Colombian Navy might have actually been defeated by the Tang Empire in the later stages of the war, just like Marshal Yang Wenli of the East back then.

Therefore, Admiral Robert Edwards took Magifin's advice seriously before leaving his post and was determined to improve the technical and tactical skills of the Colombian Navy officers and men. After all, the Colombian Navy was now on par with the Royal Victoria Navy in terms of status, but the quality of its officers and men seemed to be slightly inferior to that of the second-rate naval powers in Europe, which was unacceptable to Admiral Edwards.

However, when the Colombian Navy began organizing its first scripted military exercise, they discovered a very thorny problem.