afterglow

Chapter 613 Wonton-class aircraft carrier; Corporal Lin Xi, are you ready?

You should know that in Iran during the same period, Britain took 84% of all the profits of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, leaving only 16% for Iran.

Compared with the exploitation of the British and Dutch colonial authorities, the Ming Dynasty's 70%-30% share seemed too benevolent. It's not too much to call them foster father and mother, right?
This is a real favor!
Zhou Changfeng estimated that based on Lan Fang's population and the rich resources it possessed, its public welfare after the war should be unique, and by then it would probably become the Southeast Asian paradise that many people longed for.

The problem in Ming Dynasty is that the population is still increasing rapidly. Last year, the number of registered babies reached more than 17 million.

If this continues... even if the total amount of the welfare budget seems large, it will be diluted to an unbearable level by the huge base. I am afraid that we still need to appropriately limit births and relocate some of the population overseas.

At the same time, we must also consider whether the bureaucrats and powerful people are willing to cede, give up, or give away their benefits.

As for his personal vision, Zhou Changfeng hopes to accelerate the improvement of public welfare after the victory of the war through the dual promotion of external and internal forces - the movement for rights and welfare.

Compulsory secondary education and basic medical care are the top priorities, without a doubt.

As for the rest, childcare subsidies, old-age benefits, disability benefits, farmers' subsidies, unemployment benefits, etc., they also need to be provided bit by bit.

Anyway, the purpose is nothing more than to make citizens' lives easier and more comfortable, and everything can be considered in the direction of "food, clothing, housing, transportation, birth, aging, sickness and death".

Next, Zhou Changfeng spent about ten minutes explaining to Zhu Lingjing the appropriate size of the Lan Fang armed forces and the tasks they should undertake next.

The latter asked several questions during the process, but in the end there were no objections.

Zhu Lingjing put the newspaper into the storage box beside the table, reached out and picked up a memorial, opened it, glanced at it, and casually complained: "It's annoying. There is drought in the Central Plains again. This place has been plagued by disasters since ancient times."

"Henan?"

"Well, I'm afraid the winter wheat crop is going to fail."

It is now 1942. The drought in Henan may lead to a reduction in crop yields?
Zhou Changfeng's memory was triggered.

"I don't know if there is any way to remedy the situation. Otherwise, we have to consider transferring grain to stabilize local grain prices." Zhu Lingjing continued to flip through the memorial.

In 1942, a severe drought hit Henan Province since the beginning of the year. No rain fell in spring and summer, resulting in a significant reduction in the harvest of winter wheat planted last year. To make matters worse, a locust plague broke out in the autumn, with locusts covering the sky. However, even in such a bad situation, the garrison still forcibly collected grain and the disaster relief was extremely delayed.

In this way, a series of natural and man-made disasters led to a great famine.

"Will there be a famine?" he asked subconsciously.

Zhu Lingjing felt puzzled. She looked up at him and said calmly, "You are too kind."

She went on to say, "The Chief Secretary reported that several professors from Jinan University had jointly requested permission to try the rainfall method this time. I hope it will work this time."

Zhou Changfeng focused most of his energy on military affairs, followed by family and government affairs, and indeed knew very little about this aspect.

Does artificial rainfall already exist now?

Artificial rainmaking technology has always been highly valued in the Ming Dynasty. For thousands of years, the people living on this land have often faced the worry of hunger, and the fear of food shortage has always lingered in everyone's mind.

During the process of industrialization, people of insight began to think about how to change the laws of nature through human power.

In addition to fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, which can significantly increase crop yields, how to control precipitation is also very important.

Since the 20th year of Zhichang, scientific research teams from all over the Ming Dynasty have tried every possible means to create artificial rainfall, but there have been more failures than successes.

Things did not take a turn for the better until the cutting-edge scientific theories on artificial weather intervention were gradually perfected.

Depending on the type of clouds, artificial precipitation is divided into warm cloud rainfall enhancement and cold cloud rainfall enhancement.

If the target is warm clouds with a temperature greater than 0°C, then you can try to spread hygroscopic substances such as salt powder or urea in the clouds to promote the formation of large water droplets in the clouds, thereby increasing rainfall.

If the target is cold clouds with a temperature of less than 0℃, then you can use airplanes or rockets to spread dry ice or silver iodide, which will absorb a large amount of heat and cool down, producing more ice crystals to increase rainfall.

However, due to the extreme complexity and chaos of the natural environment, there is a great deal of uncertainty in artificial rainfall, and the effect can only be considered average, sometimes effective and sometimes ineffective.

"It's good that the imperial court has a response. I'm just worried that the local authorities will cover up the matter and cause a famine without realizing it." Zhou Changfeng breathed a sigh of relief.

"They want their lives, I want my face." Zhu Lingjing said softly.

"By the way, Your Majesty, the Type 216 Squadron has already set out from Rabaul with the 140th Division. It is estimated that they will officially recapture Tarawa on the 10th."

"it is good."

"The latest aerial reconnaissance shows that the U.S. military has almost completely withdrawn. It seems that they have no intention of defending to the death."

"They escaped pretty quickly." Zhu Lingjing said with some regret, and then asked: "What was the interception result of that fleet? Have you compiled the statistics?"

Zhou Changfeng shook his head and replied, "No news yet. The current number is probably five merchant ships."

The Ming army would not let the SX-165 fleet go easily. The Australian Corps organized a long-range air strike, and the navy also requested submarines in the surrounding waters to intercept. The Ming army desperately chased and intercepted, and the US military tried every means to escort it. In the end, 5 Liberty ships and 1 C3 freighter were sunk.

就这样，跨越茫茫大洋而来的1250辆各种汽车、350辆坦克、162门榴弹炮、1.38万支各种枪支、1.5亿发子弹、1.4万加仑汽油以及2万美吨（18144公吨）的各类物资沉入海底。

The remaining 13 Liberty ships and 2 C3 freighters also suffered varying degrees of damage and arrived in Sydney in fear.

It was almost time for lunch, so in order to avoid her asking him to stay for dinner, Zhou Changfeng hurriedly took his leave.

After the Aleutian expedition was completed, the Mars returned to the mainland for overhaul, and the main force of the fleet returned to Pearl Harbor for rest and recuperation.

The almost undamaged Ziwei Youyuan and Tianshi Zuoyuan sailed south together, and together with some screen ships formed a detachment to cooperate with the 140th Infantry Division ready to go in Rabaul to counterattack the Gilbert Islands and recapture Tarawa Atoll and Makin Atoll.

In fact, when the US military attacked the Gilbert Islands, in addition to the world-shaking Battle of Tarawa Atoll, a fierce battle broke out in Makin Atoll in the north shortly afterwards.

驻防在那的马金守御分队上下共217人，还有地勤、气象、水文之类的勤务人员52人，他们除了4辆三七式轻型坦克、2门80㎜迫击炮、2门80㎜无后坐力炮以外没有任何重武器。

The US landing force consisted of more than 1 Marines from the 3st Marine Regiment, as well as 4 Sherman tanks and Stuart tanks, which was ten times the strength of the Ming army defending the island.

The tragic battle of Tarawa dealt a heavy blow to the U.S. military. The low-morale U.S. military dragged its feet and finally took two days and one night to clear the entire island, paying the price of 72 deaths, 210 injuries, and 4 tanks completely destroyed. In fact, the situation faced by Makin’s army was worse than that of the Tarawa army, but they still responded calmly and fulfilled their duties.

Unfortunately, the dazzling brilliance of the Battle of Tarawa completely overshadowed the Battle of Makin, and more than 200 soldiers were buried in the vast files of war history and became unknown.

Zhou Changfeng specifically talked to Zhu Lingjing about this matter a few days ago. The latter was generous and agreed to give double the pension as the Tarawa defenders.

After returning to his office in the Grand Marshal's Mansion, as usual, the servants had already placed lunch on the small table, and Zhou all he had to do was eat.

He was not very particular about food, and his dishes were generally standard meals provided by the canteen of the Grand Governor's Mansion. He would occasionally ask his servants to order some takeout.

The work in the afternoon was relatively leisurely, mainly reviewing several reconnaissance reports sent back by the Australian Corps Command Headquarters, as well as the anti-submarine combat results and sea transport escort status reports sent back by the Guam Governor's Office.

"Another 100,000-ton ship sank in February. Those stupid submarines are so annoying." He cursed to himself.

Today's anti-submarine situation in the Pacific battlefield is very different from that in history and is much more intense.

The Ming army had good hydrophones and sonars, as well as hedgehog bombs. They also had a large number of frigates and anti-submarine ships. The former followed the transport fleet for escort, while the latter searched and hunted in groups.

American submarines have to face more escort ships, better sonar, and stronger anti-submarine weapons than the Japanese submarines in the original dimension, so their combat loss rate is much higher.

You should know that in the original dimension, the US military only lost 52 submarines throughout the war, but now it has lost 79.

But there was also a good thing - a good thing for the US military and a bad thing for the Ming army. That was that the scandal of the Lexington's capture led to the outrageous torpedo problem being exposed and solved early.

He read leisurely and made notes in the blank space next to the book, and finished the work that could be completed in two hours at sunset.

Just when he thought the work was done, he saw there was a report underneath.

I picked it up and opened it, and found out it was about the sea trial status and service plan of the spy aircraft carrier.

Special aircraft carrier is actually the name given to escort aircraft carrier by the Ming Dynasty Navy, but its design function is not limited to anti-submarine escort.

Since last year, the Ming Navy has believed that it is too risky to have expensive fleet aircraft carriers accompany and cover the landing fleet, and hopes to find a cheap alternative.

In the end, the Navy decided to build some small special aircraft carriers that would not occupy large slipways to escort transport fleets and cover landing fleets.

Initially they planned to order 20 ships, but soon changed their minds and ordered 46 at once.

The Ming Navy did not name its spy aircraft carriers after the usual stars, but instead used prefecture names.

Both types of spy aircraft carriers, one small and one large, were designed based on the wartime merchant ship construction plan finalized the year before and can be easily modified.

The first type is the Baoding class, which is designed based on the Renliu-type fast-built freighter. It has a standard displacement of 6900 tons, a flight deck length of 145 meters, and a capacity of 21 aircraft. The power system was changed from the original coal-fired boiler and triple-expansion steam engine to six submarine diesel engines, totaling 1.2 horsepower and a maximum speed of 20.2 knots.

The second type of spy aircraft carrier is the Zhaoqing class, which is designed based on the Guijiu-type fast-built tanker. It has a standard displacement of 9800 tons, a flight deck length of 161 meters, and a capacity of 28 aircraft. The power system has been greatly modified to include two heavy oil boilers and a steam turbine, which can output 1.6 horsepower and a maximum speed of 19.5 knots.

Interestingly, the navy was psychologically unable to accept such a fragile "aircraft carrier" at first, so the six early Baoding-class ships were also equipped with complete hangar deck armor with a thickness of 6 mm, which could withstand 50 kg semi-armor-piercing bombs. This increased the center of gravity and worsened stability.

But the problem is that it is very common for US military aircraft to use 1000-pound (454 kg) heavy bombs, so thin armor is of little significance.

Therefore, the Baoding class later cancelled the complete hangar armor and only laid the hangar deck armor at the corresponding position of the power compartment.

The Ming Navy has successively ordered 41 Baoding-class ships and 5 Zhaoqing-class ships. Now 4 Baoding-class ships have been completed and are undergoing sea trials. The average construction period is 7 months.

Xu Zhiyan, president of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Shipbuilding Group, solemnly assured the Ministry of War that the construction time of the subsequent Baoding-class ships could be further shortened by more than 40 days.

Once during a meeting, Zhou Changfeng joked with everyone that the enemy was making aircraft carriers like making dumplings, and we should also make them like making wontons.

It now seems to be almost done. By the end of this year, these dozens of small spy aircraft carriers will be mostly completed, and are expected to be completed by the turn of spring and summer next year.

After reading the document, Zhou Changfeng wrote the words "as soon as possible" and stamped it with his own seal.

"Work is called! Let's go home!" He put the pen back into the pen holder with satisfaction and stood up.

Today is relatively easy, and I have enough energy to deal with Xia Xiaoshi, who turns into a devil at night. Scoring twice is no problem!
Two attendants were already waiting beside the car. When they saw him get out, they opened the back door.

It is a very common pattern that one person drives the car and the other sits in the passenger seat, while the senior official sits alone in the back seat.

At the same time, in the Zhou family residence...

The appetizing aroma of dishes wafted from the east wing. Naturally, the general's wife no longer had to worry about cooking, as the court assigned attendants and maids to all military and political officials.

Xia Xiaoshi's cooking skills were very bad, even nine out of ten, but she still felt good about herself and boasted about it. As punishment, Zhou Changfeng had often taught her a lesson.

In the hall of the main house, Xia Xiaoshi was comforting the uneasy Lin Xi with a friendly expression.

"…It's been several years. I've been wandering around for so long. It's time to go back."

"Ma'am, I'm actually reluctant to leave this place."

At this time, a familiar car sound came from outside. Zhou Changfeng pushed the door open and walked in through the small front yard.

Seeing that the atmosphere was different from before, he looked them up and down and asked, "What's going on?"

Lin Xi, with a complicated look in her eyes, said nothing, but handed the letter to Zhou Changfeng with both hands.

In addition to the letter paper, the letter also contained a piece of well-made waterproof cardboard with the words "Recruitment Order for Reserve Soldiers" written on it.

While he was browsing, Xia Xiaoshi explained softly, "Xiaoxi received a conscription order from Lan Fang. She wants to return home."

This letter was sent by Lin Xi's father, and it was obvious that the conscription order was first sent to her place of residence.

"Do you want to? How can you not want to?" Zhou Changfeng folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. He stared at the slightly uneasy Lin Xi and smiled. Then he pretended to be serious and asked, "Corporal Lin Xi, are you ready?"

(End of this chapter)