Seven Seas Beacon Fire

There's not much to say about this. After all, the needs of various countries for miscellaneous ships are quite flexible, and it's difficult to quantify them precisely. Doing so would make the treaty negotiation process and content too complicated. To avoid having to hold a supplementary meeting to discuss the construction of a Type 037, the number of kindergarten ships under 700 tons and ships between 700 and 2000 tons with restrictions on armament and speed will not be limited.

Generally speaking, neither of these two types of ships will have much impact on the decisive battle of the fleet.

"Finally, before we formally begin negotiations on cruiser tonnage quotas, I would like to introduce you to someone: Tokugawa Akiko, daughter of the Tokugawa Shogun."

Li Che slightly turned his body to the side, and Tokugawa Akiko, who had been sitting in the back, stood up at the right moment. She walked to Li Che's side with the elegant steps characteristic of a lady from a prominent family.

"Please allow me to greet my old friends first." Amidst the bewildered, surprised, or annoyed gazes of the representatives from various countries, she gracefully bowed to them in turn, then turned her gaze to the members of the Yingzhou delegation sitting behind the Colombian representative. Her gaze was particularly focused on one of them: "It's been a long time, Your Highness Zhaoren."

Chapter 306 Initial Treaty

Despite bearing the title of "Crown Prince," in this era where national status matters, would the major powers participating in the naval treaty care about an unknown small country that was supported by the United States of Colombia?

The title of Crown Prince Zhaoren is probably not much higher in the eyes of these major powers than the sons of some tribal chiefs in Africa.

So although the Yingzhou delegation, led by Crown Prince Akishino, was brought to the naval conference by the United States of Colombia with the idea of ​​"making the world take Yingzhou seriously today," in reality, no country had ever given them a second glance before.

Although Yingzhou also received approximately 17 tons of capital ship tonnage at this naval conference, everyone knew that the capital ship tonnage they were able to obtain was entirely dependent on the United States of Colombia. Therefore, before Tokugawa Akiko took the initiative to greet him, few people paid any attention to him.

Now, however, he has finally achieved his wish of "making everyone's eyes focus on him," just as he had before he set off. But at this moment, Zhaoren deliberately hopes that no one will look at him.

He was well aware of how terrible his expression looked.

Akihito never expected to see Tokugawa Akiko again on such an occasion. Tokugawa Akiko had not appeared at the previous meetings. Although the intelligence department in Yingzhou had received some rumors that the shogunate would send someone to attend this naval conference, they had not seen her in the previous rounds of talks. So Akihito originally thought that the news was just a rumor.

Unexpectedly, in this situation, he not only actually met the people sent by the shogunate, but the person sent by the shogunate was none other than the white moonlight he had been longing for.

Originally, I was watching the subtle, intimate gestures between Tokugawa Akiko and the grandson of the Tang Empire—whether it was the gaze Akiko cast when she stood up, or the hand that Riche placed on Akiko's waist as she stepped onto the podium.

Just through these subtle physical movements, Akihito was certain that Akiko, whom he longed for day and night, was already in bed making advances towards the Crown Prince.

That woman should have been mine!

She's the girl I grew up with, and I've liked her for 10 years!

She was originally supposed to marry him along with Gongwu!

Now... he can only sit here and watch his beloved and another despicable man behaving intimately. Tokugawa Akiko has clearly forgotten their past affections; she has completely devoted herself to the Tang Empire!

Faced with Tokugawa Akiko's greeting, Akihito remained silent with a grim expression, because he didn't know what to say. He didn't know if what he said would have any impact on Yingzhou, or on his ally Columbia. Doing nothing meant he wouldn't make a mistake.

When Akiko Tokugawa saw that Akihito didn't even have the courage to respond directly, she realized that her prepared remarks were like cotton wool, which made Akiko somewhat unhappy.

After all, His Highness the Crown Prince was right beside her today, and Tokugawa Akiko originally intended to settle all the national and personal grievances and Emperor Akihito's score in front of His Highness the Crown Prince.

As for why Akiko wanted to teach Akihito a lesson, to put it simply, it's like a simp calling his goddess while he's having sex with his crush – that's part of the play.

However, Akiko attended the meeting today for serious business, not simply to make Akihito unhappy. So, Akiko then introduced the current state of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the participating countries and pointed out that the current Yingzhou regime was a puppet regime supported by Columbia, and that the Tokugawa Shogunate was the legitimate government of Yingzhou.

Next, Akiko Tokugawa introduced the forces at the disposal of the Shogunate Navy. Of course, she was not referring to the original cruisers of the Shogunate Navy. In Akiko Tokugawa's words, the forces of the Shogunate Navy naturally included the "heavy cruisers" that had been transferred to them.

Then, Tokugawa Akiko changed the subject, first showering Li Che with compliments, essentially saying that both the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Tang Dynasty were peace-loving and had not used any underhanded tactics to obtain capital ships beyond their treaty quotas during the previous naval treaty negotiations. (She even glanced at Victoria and Columbia at this point.) This alone proved that the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Tang Dynasty genuinely hoped to find peace at the conference.

Akiko Tokugawa then stated that, for the sake of future stability and peace in the Western Pacific region, the Tokugawa Shogunate was willing to declare its current fleet tonnage share and would not increase the fleet size except for normal fleet rotations.

The representatives from Columbia and Yingzhou were originally prepared to immediately object after Mingzi finished speaking. The reason was simple: what the opponent advocated was exactly what they needed to oppose. The Tang Empire's decision to promote the Tokugawa Shogunate at this time was definitely intended to…

Wait a minute, are they talking about cruisers?

Akiko Tokugawa's remarks left the Colombian representatives somewhat bewildered, because according to the terms regarding cruisers proposed by Li Che himself, non-treaty countries were not subject to any restrictions on purchasing cruisers with a tonnage not exceeding 10,000 tons and a caliber not exceeding 210 mm.

Since they were not subject to any restrictions to begin with, the Tokugawa Shogunate's proactive declaration of its naval size and its request to be subject to the same restrictions as other signatory states within the framework of the treaty... From the perspective of the spirit of the conference, this should be encouraged, not opposed.

Because they voluntarily requested to limit their size! They didn't ask for capital ships, and they even voluntarily requested to limit the size of their cruisers. They're practically role models! What are you objecting to? How are you going to object?

Oppose their initiative to limit the size of their fleet, and demand that they absolutely not sign any treaties? Should they instead engage in large-scale procurement of cruisers?

What exactly was the Tang Empire up to?

wrong!

There were still some clever people in the Colombian delegation. Someone finally realized at this moment: "They want to indirectly make us recognize or accept that the Tokugawa Shogunate is still the legitimate government of Japan... or at least one of the legitimate governments!"

One sentence was enough to wake everyone in the Colombian delegation from their daze.

So this is where we were waiting?

The Tang Empire and Colombia had a huge disagreement over the Yingzhou issue. Because the differences between the two sides were so difficult to resolve, even in the previous ceasefire treaty, the two sides only wrote "shelve the dispute and maintain the status quo" in the ceasefire document.

If Columbia agrees with what Akiko Tokugawa just said, it means that the legitimacy of the shogunate has been greatly enhanced in the current situation.

However, if Columbia disagrees with Mingzi's statement, then since they are no longer a signatory to the treaty, if they can't buy battleships during the treaty period, can't they at least buy cruisers? Who knows how many heavy cruisers the Tang Dynasty will acquire through Yingzhou at that time.

Now, being single-minded has become a double-edged sword.

Akiko Tokugawa's surprise attack did indeed catch the Colombians somewhat off guard, which was exactly Li Che's real purpose: to gain a small advantage in the treaty's wording, to secretly exceed the tonnage limit when building warships... these were all just "minor tricks".

What is the "Great Way"?

Their actions today are probably somewhat related to the "Great Way".

Legal principles are something that, if you don't actively pursue them, may not be useful now, but that doesn't mean they'll be useless in the future. Moreover, at crucial moments, they are something that means "I may not need them, but you can't be without them."

The Colombian delegation held an emergency discussion on this matter. However, Colombia was not fully prepared for today's surprise attack, but in the end they acquiesced to the request made by Akiko Tokugawa in her speech today.

Both the Tang Dynasty and Colombia are essentially gambling. One side is betting that legal principles will be useless for the foreseeable future, while the other side is betting that they will be useful—maybe even tomorrow.

Of course, another reason why Colombia was relatively easy to talk to was probably that after several difficult negotiations and battles, this almost marathon-like naval arms control treaty negotiation had become a huge drain and even torture for the representatives of all countries.

If Colombia insists on taking this issue seriously, it's hard to guarantee that the Tang Dynasty won't retaliate by bringing up the Kii Kingdom, thus overturning all the agreements reached regarding the naval capital ships.

Since things have come to this, let's leave it at that for now.

Zhao Ren witnessed firsthand how Yingzhou's "closest ally" showed absolutely no regard for their kingdom's attitude on such a crucial issue. Previously, when dealing with military and political figures from Colombia due to his special status in Yingzhou, he had not felt their contempt for him.

Now, when he represents a country at such a conference, he can truly feel the malice that the truly powerful nations in this world harbor towards small countries like theirs.

“Your Highness, patience will bring peace. This is clearly a conspiracy between the Tang Empire and the Shogunate to embarrass us.”

"Yes, Your Highness, the Shogunate is now truly a defeated fugitive. They don't even have any territory they actually control anymore, even after sending their daughter to the Crown Prince of the Tang Empire..."

The few people from the Kingdom of Kii who accompanied him to the meeting could only try their best to appease Akira. After all, they could not change the will of the United States of Colombia, so they could only change their own will.

However, one of these people was unaware of the relationship between Akihito and Tokugawa Akiko. As a result, he originally intended to persuade the Crown Prince, but after the words came out of his mouth, Akihito became even more defensive.

The goddess he couldn't win over back then was just a plaything handed to someone else (at least that's how Zhaoren understood it), and that's what truly breaks one's heart.

The incident at the Shogunate today was merely a small footnote in the process of naval treaty negotiations. In any case, the negotiations between the various countries regarding cruisers were not significantly affected by this minor episode and quickly got back on track, subsequently allocating tonnage shares for a series of ships.

维多利亚帝国、哥伦比亚合众国、大唐帝国、高卢王国和叙拉古王国重巡洋舰总吨位150000吨：180000吨：180000吨：80000吨：80000吨。

维多利亚帝国、哥伦比亚合众国、大唐帝国、高卢王国和叙拉古王国轻巡洋舰总吨位为190000吨：150000吨：150000吨：70000吨：70000吨。

维多利亚帝国、哥伦比亚合众国、大唐帝国、高卢王国和叙拉古王国驱逐舰总吨位为150000吨：150000吨：150000吨：55000吨：55000吨。

维多利亚帝国、哥伦比亚合众国、大唐帝国、高卢王国和叙拉古王国潜舰总吨位为52700吨：52700吨：52700吨：32000吨：32000吨。

The five major naval powers seized the opportunity to finalize the tonnage quotas for heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and submarines in one fell swoop, essentially settling most of the issues in the Washington Naval Treaty and the London Naval Treaty in one fell swoop.

However, the provisions concerning cruisers differ significantly from those in the London Naval Treaty of another world, with the most prominent difference being the provisions concerning heavy cruisers.

In the newly drafted Honolulu Naval Treaty, countries only allocated a total tonnage quota for heavy cruisers, without specifying how many heavy cruisers each country should build. Although theoretically heavy cruisers should be in the 10,000-ton range, this subtle difference will inevitably have some impact in the future.

After all, there has never been a shortage of clever people in the navies of any country. No matter how perfect the terms of a treaty are, there will always be people who want to find loopholes in them.

The tonnage division between the most important heavy cruisers and light cruisers clearly shows the difference in needs between the Royal Victoria Navy, the Colombian Navy, and the Royal Tang Navy. The Royal Victoria Navy, with its heavy workload and significant advantage in fast fleet strength, values ​​light cruisers more, while the other two have the words "fleet decisive battle" practically written on their faces.

P.S.: I was drinking with friends and it got late again. I woke up in the early hours of the morning to write, but I only managed to update one chapter. I'm going to sleep for a while and will make up for the rest later.

Chapter 307: Is it all over after the naval treaty is signed?

"It seems there won't be any more super destroyers now." After the final provisions of the naval treaty regarding destroyers and submarines were finalized, Li Che inexplicably felt a sense of "a new era is dawning."

To be honest, there are still significant differences of opinion among the parties regarding the final terms concerning destroyers. The Colombian Navy is the least concerned about this, probably because they participated in the war for a longer period than the beacon of another world. Colombia built more than 200 flat-deck destroyers during the World War.

Although the performance of the flat-deck destroyers built by the Colombian Navy is mediocre and their appearance is not very attractive, the quantity of destroyers has always been more important than their quality. Because they have built too many destroyers, it was originally planned for the Colombian Navy to mothball or retire some of them. In any case, their requirement is to be on par with the other two of the top three powers in terms of the number of destroyers.

As the world's leading industrial nation, Colombia today is not the "hollow cabbage" of the 21st century, where even building a Constellation-class corvette was a struggle, and the only shipyard in the entire country capable of building CVNs was the Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard, where weapons were stored away, horses were left to graze, military preparedness was neglected, and the country was complacent and idle.

Colombia is now the world's strongest industrial nation, having proven its strength through the World Wars. They have full confidence that they can continue to produce destroyers as rapidly as they did during the recent World Wars when faced with new armed conflicts or even wars.

After all, destroyers are not like other large warships, which have a long construction cycle that is often measured in years. It is not worth the Colombian Navy going to great lengths to scrutinize the details of a ship with a construction cycle measured in weeks.

However, the Royal Navy of Victoria was different. They didn't have a particularly high demand for the tonnage of their remaining destroyers, since destroyers were relatively small vessels. The Royal Navy also maintained a large fleet, and in those days, destroyers of a thousand tons had limited range. The Royal Navy mainly relied on light cruisers to maintain its presence in the colonies.

However, the Victorian Empire was located on the edge of Europe, and the size of the Gallic destroyers was very important to the Victorian Empire. After all, a major premise before the signing of this naval arms control treaty was the dissolution of the Entente military alliance, and the Gauls could not even be considered a dubious ally of Victoria at this time.

The two countries are separated only by the English Channel. Although the Green Water School, which Gaul once became obsessed with, seriously affected the construction of their main battle fleet, you have to admit that the Green Water School is really disgusting, disgusting to its own people and even more disgusting to its enemies!

As a nation that has been thoroughly disgusted by these things over the past few decades, how could the Victorian Empire not attach great importance to destroyers?

Therefore, the Royal Navy of Victoria is very keen to control the size of the destroyer forces of various countries, while the Gallic Navy is very reluctant to control the size of its destroyer fleet.

Li Che's views on destroyers were similar to those of the United States of Colombia. These light warships, whose status in the navy at this time was only slightly higher than that of torpedo boats, which were like mayflies, could not be said to be quick to be produced and die. At least in the year or two before the outbreak of World War II, a large number of them could be produced quickly. In theory, maintaining a large number of destroyers during naval holidays did not have much significance.

The problem is that this applies to countries like the Tang Dynasty and Colombia, or at least the Victorian Empire. The Kingdom of Gaul clearly does not have the confidence to do so in the future. Therefore, they naturally prefer to maintain a sufficient number of light naval fleets in peacetime.

The delegation from the Victorian Empire contacted Li Che and his group privately, hoping that the Tang Dynasty could persuade the Gallic Kingdom. After all, there were things that the Tang Dynasty could say that the Gallic Kingdom might listen to, but the Victorian Empire would definitely not listen to them.

So, during lunch, Sa Dingming took the opportunity to have a private chat with the head of the Gaul delegation. Sa Dingming, speaking from experience, cited the performance of the torpedo boat force of the Ming Dynasty's Royal Navy during the Battle of Yuanshan.

"The British Channel is only so wide, and the treaty does not restrict large torpedo boats under 700 tons. Your country can build a batch of ocean-going torpedo boats to deal with security challenges in the Atlantic. Even torpedo boats of three or four hundred tons are enough to pose a threat to the British Channel and even the coastal areas of the Victorian Empire. The cost of building one destroyer is enough to build several such torpedo boats. This is a cost-effective and efficient defense development path."

Ultimately, it's unclear whether the real-life example of the Battle of Yuanshan convinced the Gauls, or whether Gaul's financial difficulties after the war limited them; in any case, the Gallic navy eventually accepted the Tang Dynasty's suggestion.

Compared to the Washington Naval Treaty in another world, the Honolulu Naval Treaty was signed much faster in this world. By mid-August, all the details of the naval treaty had been written down. Legal experts, naval and government officials from various countries then reviewed the contents of the treaty one by one. Finally, on September 15, the delegations of various countries officially signed the Honolulu Naval Treaty in Honolulu.

With representatives from various countries signing the treaty together, the spiraling naval arms race that had been unfolding on this planet since the end of the last century, accompanied by the rapid development of naval technology, finally came to a temporary end.

The past few decades have witnessed the greatest leaps in naval technology and the fastest technological iterations in human history. There have even been instances where warships were already becoming obsolete as soon as they were launched, even while still under construction on the slipway. Furthermore, the various subsystems of the navy have made astonishing progress during these years.

Artillery has evolved from muzzle-loading cannons to breech-loading cannons, from recoil-propellant cannons to recoil-operated rapid-fire cannons, and propellant has evolved from black powder to maroon powder and then to smokeless powder. The propellant in shells and torpedoes has evolved from black powder to KU-flavored acid and then to the current TNT and even RDX.

Armor has evolved from cast iron armor to Combon armor (steel-faced iron armor), from cast steel to nickel steel, and from the first generation of surface-hardened armor to today's secondary carburized surface-hardened steel and high-elasticity steel with better ductility and toughness, etc.

As for the development of the power system from the triple-expansion steam engine to the steam turbine, the fire control equipment from the simple sextant to the optical rangefinder, and then to the modern fire control facilities composed of complex equipment such as the fire control console and pitch control panel, the speed of warships has increased from the original dozen knots to more than 30 knots now, and the distance between stations has increased from two or three thousand meters in the early days to almost 2 meters now. This is a year of "technological explosion" in the history of human military development.

This year of technological explosion has been forcibly brought to a halt. Although from a purely technical point of view, even just considering the development of surface artillery warfare based on the original values ​​of the artillery era, it is far from over. At this rate, it would not be surprising to see giant ships with a tonnage of 60,000 to 80,000 tons appearing on the sea in at most 10 years, equipped with 18-inch or even 20-inch naval guns.

Unfortunately, just as the human body's weak physical condition cannot support the accurate control of a fully automatic rifle bullet, human social development and economic foundation cannot support the landing of such a behemoth in this era.

However, the so-called treaty era, the so-called naval holiday, is not simply a matter of signing an arms control treaty that controls the tonnage of the navies of various countries and then everything is fine. The real treaty era is actually composed of a series of complex multinational treaties and bilateral treaties between countries.

When Li Che and his entourage were preparing to board the Jingyuan ship to return to China from Honolulu, Professor Wei Wei and his team had only just begun their work.

The control and demarcation of various countries over a series of islands and sea areas, including the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, as well as the areas where countries can arm themselves and fortify themselves while maintaining a state of demilitarization, all need to be discussed in detail.

Although the Anchorage Treaty stipulated that a number of islands, including Ryukyu, should not be fortified for the next 20 years, the future status of many islands in Southeast Asia and South Asia, besides Ryukyu, remains to be determined by the various countries involved and will require time and resources.

It was the combination of these various treaties that constituted the treaty era.

"It feels so good to be an imperialist..."

Before leaving Honolulu, Li Che's gaze lingered on a huge world map displayed in the venue. The colors on this map differed greatly from the world map commonly perceived, because the colors on this map actually represented the spheres of influence of various countries. To some extent, it was a visual representation of the five major powers participating in the naval treaty negotiations and their division of the world.

From the perspective of many countries and peoples in the world other than the five major powers, the land they live on is being brutally divided by the great powers like cutting a cake with colors and flags. This is undoubtedly a kind of barbaric hegemony.

However, Li Che, who had witnessed the history of another world, was extremely grateful that from the Ming Dynasty to the present Tang Dynasty, they had at least always been sitting at the dining table instead of lying on it.

The experience of Yanping in this war shows that as soon as we show the slightest sign of fatigue, those wolves and tigers outside will be eager to devour our flesh and blood and suck our blood.

Fortunately, the Tang Dynasty did not lose.

He couldn't help but recall the quote Thomas Wade made in "The Three-Body Problem".

Losing humanity means losing a lot; losing animality means losing everything.

The fangs of beasts do not disappear with the arrival of naval holidays; struggle and competition never cease. The era of savage competition is over; what follows is an era in which nations dance in shackles and fight within the confines of the octagon.

"What did you just say, Your Highness?"

“It’s nothing, Mingzi.” Li Che smiled. “I’m just marveling at how a new era is about to begin.”

Volume Two: Naval Holidays

Chapter 308 Battle of the Giants (1)

When the Jingyuan returned to Songjiang Port, Li Che saw the behemoths that had come to the port area docks to await dismantling in accordance with the treaty requirements.

These behemoths were built with the best of the Ming Dynasty's industry and technology, and each one was launched with the boundless hope of achieving maritime hegemony.