Rise of Australia

Chapter 143 The Island-Australia Agreement and Responses from All Parties

Chapter 143 The Island-Australia Agreement and Responses from All Parties

"Mr. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia, I am willing to conclude a new naval order transaction with your country. Your country's Duke-class armored cruiser is very suitable for our coastal protection requirements. I wonder if your country can provide us with it within two years. At least four such warships?" Yuzawa Koichiro asked with a smile.

If you are careful, you can find that Yuzawa Koichiro's delivery requirements for battleships, armored cruisers and even various weapons and equipment are all within two years.

Although these weapons and equipment can indeed be built and delivered within two years, the sum of all the requirements seems a bit unusual.

In addition, the island country is currently importing a large amount of weapons and equipment, large and small warships, as well as important strategic resources including coal and iron ore and other materials.

There are indications that the island country will make a major move two years later, and even the island country's plot is not small.

You must know that within the scope of East Asia, the only enemy that can make the island country mobilize so many troops without worrying about opposition and sanctions from other powers is the Tsarist Empire.

Although there is still a huge country that can make the island country do its best, the interests of this country are currently divided up by the major powers, and the powers will not agree to the island country's private occupation of this rich area.

"This should be no problem, Mr. Yuzawa Koichiro. But our shipyard is currently so large. If we want to build these armored cruisers while completing the battleship construction plan, we must expand the shipyard to a certain extent and recruit more. The manpower is enough." Australia's Deputy Foreign Minister nodded, and said a little embarrassed: "This may increase the construction cost of the armored cruiser, and even return to the original price of this warship."

The public price of this armored cruiser is 130 ​​pounds, and the preferential price for the island country is 5 pounds.

The return to the original price level mentioned by the Australian Deputy Foreign Minister is actually to increase the price of each warship by [-] pounds to balance the cost of expanding Australia's shipyards and recruiting manpower.

"How about fifty-five thousand pounds?" Yuzawa Koichiro asked with a smile: "This is a reasonable price we can accept. If your country also agrees to this price, then we can immediately sign the purchase of four armored cruisers treaty."

Fifty-five thousand pounds?Australia's deputy foreign minister pondered silently.Even with a certain expansion of the shipyard, the profit of each armored cruiser is more than [-] pounds.

If the island country can customize more than four armored cruisers at one time, the total profit of this order can exceed [-] pounds, which can make up for the cost of Australia's naval expansion.

And these saved expenses can also be used in other places to contribute to the development and construction of Australia.

"No problem, Mr. Yuzawa Koichiro. The delivery time of these four armored cruisers is the same as that of the battleships, all within two years. As a commemoration of the first warship trade between your country and Australia, on behalf of Australia, I present them to your country A small coastal frigate. This coastal frigate will also be handed over with battleships and armored cruisers to witness the friendship between your country and Australia." After thinking for a while, the Australian Deputy Foreign Minister replied with a smile .

"Thank you so much, Mr. Minister. May the friendship between the island countries and Australia last forever." Koichiro Yuzawa responded with a smile, showing a look of overjoy.

In fact, whether it is for Australia or for island countries, a small coastal frigate will not be taken seriously.

The construction cost of a coastal frigate is only a few thousand pounds, which is far less than a fraction of the warship transaction.

Giving an island country such a warship can not only confirm the theory that a friend of a friend is a friend put forward by the island country, but also make the island country feel at ease to trade warships with Australia, and it can also look good in face, so that the politicians and people of the island country also All satisfied.

After all, before the official birth of the dreadnought, Arthur did not intend to equip the Australian Navy with such a luxurious warship as the pre-dreadnought.

Not only does a pre-dreadnought cost millions of pounds, but it also takes a lot of manpower and experts to build it for more than a year.

In exchange for what?After the birth of the dreadnought, no matter how brand new the former dreadnought was, it lost its luster in front of the dreadnought and lost the room for resistance.

But if Australia wants to quickly master the construction technology of dreadnoughts after the birth of dreadnoughts, then the construction technology of pre-dreadnoughts must be mastered.

This is equivalent to the accumulation of school knowledge. If there is no basic education for the accumulation of student knowledge, directly sending a person who has not studied to go to a university to study will be tantamount to counterproductive and useless.

Besides, this is impossible.What qualifications does a country that cannot even master the pre-dreadnought construction technology have to start the construction of dreadnoughts after the birth of dreadnoughts?

Although the dreadnought is a new type of warship born after the all-round technical improvement of the former dreadnought, almost all technologies have been reformed and replaced, which has created the dreadnought's crushing of the former dreadnought.

But if there is no pre-dreadnought, the birth of the dreadnought will no longer exist.

Now the arrival of the diplomatic missions of the island countries also allowed Arthur to see Australia's method of allowing the technical experts in the shipyard to master the technology of building battleships without spending money.

By selling battleships to the outside world, not only can they earn a lot of benefits, but also allow these experts to have battleships to build, and they can also familiarize themselves with the technology they have learned from German experts.

Australia is naturally profitable, and the island countries will not lose money, at least before the birth of the dreadnought.

This kind of arms trade that you love and I wish, you can't complain about being cheated just because the arms will be eliminated in the future.

On November 1902, 11, after a long period of discussions and visits, the diplomatic mission of the island country finally confirmed the final order for the arms trade.

This is a battleship, four armored cruisers, a coastal frigate (gift), 98 Gew[-] rifles, [-] German-made Maxim heavy machine guns, [-] [-]mm gram Rupp howitzers and tens of millions of rounds of rifles, heavy machine gun bullets, [-] rounds of artillery shells and a series of procurement plans for light and heavy weapons and warships.

These weapons can even directly equip a top 2 navy in the world and an elite army of [-] people with powerful firepower.

What's more, the army of the island country is already very strong. The five battleships purchased by the naval equipment from the United Kingdom and one battleship captured in the previous naval battle, a total of six ships, ranking among the top ten in the world.

As for the army, relying on sufficient population and militarism, the island country can arm a huge army of millions of people at will, and even an army of more than 300 million people under the premise of shaking the country.

In addition to this arms trade treaty, the island country also signed a resource import and export treaty with Australia.

Resource imports are not limited to simple coal and iron ore, but also a series of metal minerals and resources including oil, nickel, aluminum and so on.

This resource import and export treaty stipulates that Australia must provide at least [-] tons of mineral resources to the island country every year, and the sale price of mineral resources must not exceed twice the market price.

In order to compensate Australia for its mineral output, the transportation of these mineral resources will be the responsibility of the island country, and Australia only needs to transport them to the seaport.

This treaty is a win-win for Australia and the island countries. Australia can use its mineral resources that can be seen everywhere in the country to exchange for some foreign exchange. These foreign exchange can also buy more advanced industrial equipment from Europe and accelerate Australia's industrialization and technological progress.

At the same time, the island country can also change the status quo of its lack of domestic mineral resources to a certain extent, so that its domestic industries that are somewhat sluggish and stagnant due to the limitation of mineral resources can make progress and breakthroughs.

The arms trade treaty and the treaty on the import and export of mineral resources constitute the general treaty signed by the island country diplomatic mission and Australia, that is, the preliminary agreement between the island country and Australia on strengthening economic and military cooperation, also known as the Island Australia Agreement.

This agreement does not have any military attributes, and the arms involved are only actions taken by Arthur to open up Australia's military exports.

This agreement still has a certain impact on the international aspect. Although Australia has seized part of the British arms trade market, but because of the good relationship between Australia and the British Empire on the surface, and Arthur's good reputation in the British Empire, Great Britain The empire did not take any action or voice.

The United States is also happy to see the cooperation between Australia and the island countries.

The United States and the Tsarist Russian Empire can also be regarded as neighboring countries, and even the nearest border between the two countries is only less than four kilometers.

Of course, the situation where these two countries are adjacent was also facilitated by the Tsarist Russian Empire.Now the territory of the United States, the land of Alaska was once a colony of the Russian Empire.

However, because of the poor financial management of the Russian Empire, it was sold to the United States and became a new state in the United States.

It is also this state, which is less than four kilometers away from the easternmost island in the Far East of the Russian Empire, making the Russian Empire and the United States adjacent countries.

With the rise of American industry and economy, the United States is not satisfied with keeping its influence within the scope of North America.

But the rest of the world has basically been divided up by the European powers. No matter how hard the United States works, it can only snatch a little food from a country like Spain, which is already weakened.

In order to strengthen its influence, the United States must expand its prestige to other regions and countries.

The east side is naturally impossible. The other side of the Atlantic Ocean is the most prosperous and developed Europe. Judging from the current military strength of the United States, it is simply not enough to confront the European powers.

Therefore, the United States can only look at Asia across the Pacific Ocean, and fight Spain, and robbing the Philippines is the epitome of the US plan.

But in Asia, the United States also faces several relatively powerful enemies.The Tsarist Russian Empire in northern Asia, across eastern Europe and the easternmost part of Asia is one of the old European powers and one of the countries with huge influence in Asia and the Far East.

In East Asia, the big countries here have basically been divided up by the big powers, and the United States can only participate in a piece of the pie, and cannot realize its own interests.

Further south is Southeast Asia and Oceania.Both before and now, most of the areas in these two places are untouched by the United States.

Whether it is the colonies of the British Empire, the Dutch Southeast Asian colonies supported by many powers, or Australia, which has a good relationship with the British Empire and the German Empire, they are temporarily untouchable by the United States.

Even though the industry and economy of the United States are already very developed, the military technology is still relatively backward, and it is not yet able to form a confrontation with the European powers.

Since the United States cannot directly intervene in the situation in Asia, it is very necessary to support and support a country to become a crap stick.

At this point, the British Empire and the United States have almost the same purpose.That is to support and support a country with a certain military power to confront the hegemonic country in Asia without directly intervening.

It can not only weaken the hegemony of the hegemonic countries in Asia, but also allow the power of the British Empire and the United States to be better extended in Asia, and it can also not drag down its own country or get involved in the vortex of war.

Judging from the current situation, the Tsarist Russian Empire is obviously much stronger than the island countries.This is why the British Empire, known as the European shit stick, did not object to this cooperation.

In addition to the British Empire, another German Empire that has a good cooperative relationship with Australia has no objection to this.

Although the cooperation between Australia and the island country has strengthened the military power of the island country, it has made the Tsarist Russian Empire's advantage in the Far East even weaker, and even has a considerable disadvantage in terms of the number of troops.

But isn't this the opportunity for the German Empire?The German Empire has always wanted to extract the Tsarist Russian Empire from the Franco-Russian Agreement, and the current conflict between the island country and the Tsarist Russian Empire in the Far East is a good opportunity.

France did not support the Russian Empire to focus more on the Far East, which also gave the German Empire an opportunity to win over the Russian Empire.

As long as Tsarist Russia, the European bulldozer, can be extracted from the Franco-Russian Entente, or the Tsarist Russian Empire can remain neutral in the conflict between the German Empire and France, then the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire only need to face one enemy, and that is France.

This is the greatest good news for the German Empire. Germany, which had just brutally abused France decades ago, was not afraid of going to war with France.

If it's just a one-on-one match between Germany and France, it's the Germans who are confident that history will repeat itself and let the French feel the loss of territory and the taste of large indemnities.

Therefore, the expansion of the power of the island country is what the German Empire would like to see.After all, the stronger the island country is, the more Tsarist Russia needs the support of other countries, doesn't it?

 Two-in-one chapters for support

  
 
(End of this chapter)

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