In the early morning, two hundred nautical miles southeast of Chang'an, the sky above Daxing Island was surrounded by clouds and mist.

On the east side, a vast tropical rainforest was cleared, and the Fourth Shipyard of the Tang Dynasty Royal Navy is located here.

Thousands of people gathered around the large dock No. 5, and an extremely huge hull was parked in the dock, full of colorful flags.

Today is the day when the hull of the warship Chiyou was launched. This warship has been built in four years since it laid a keel in February 1932.

It took four years to get the hull to be launched, and it can only be described in a slow word.

But in fact, it is not the case. The reason for slowness is that it is slow. The Chiyou warship announced the standard of super battleships, with the purpose of misleading other powerful countries to continue to pay attention to battleships. She succeeded because in order to engage in an arms race with the Tang Empire, the Japanese Empire Navy spent a huge amount of money to build four Yamato-class super crossbow-type battleships, which were hailed as the world's strongest battleships.

In fact, the reason why the Chiyou and the other three brother ships were built at a snail-like speed is because they were not super battleships at all. They were built according to the standards of the second-generation aircraft carrier from the beginning. The purpose of delaying the speed was to prevent the outside world from guessing that they were aircraft carriers. Of course, there was another reason, that is, the technical capabilities of the Tang Empire four years ago could not meet the standards of perfecting the second-generation aircraft carrier, and the slow construction was also slowly exploring and advancing.

Now four years have passed, and the industrial capacity and technical reserves of the Tang Empire have fully possessed the ability to build second-generation aircraft carriers, which was reflected in the launch of all four Doukui-class aircraft carriers a year ago. Although there were constant problems during the sea trial period, they all met the standards overall. With these experiences, as an amplified version of the Doukui-class aircraft carrier, the launch of the Chiyou-class aircraft carrier was a natural result. At this time, the Chiyou-class aircraft carrier was actually not intended to hide it, but to disclose the fact that the Chiyou is a super-large aircraft carrier rather than a super battleship.

The USS Chiyou aircraft carrier, the Royal Navy number [cv-9], is the fifth aircraft carrier developed and built by the Tang Empire on its own in the local area after the launch of four large Doukui-class aircraft carriers a year ago, and is also the fifth second-generation aircraft carrier in the world. Its iconic is that it has an oblique flight deck, which combines the take-off and landing deck and does not affect each other's operations at the same time.

As an improved and enlarged version of the Doukui-class aircraft carrier, the Chiyou aircraft carrier has a designed displacement of 50,000 tons. The actual displacement is 55,000 tons. The through-type straight deck is 280 meters long, the oblique flight deck is 205 meters long, and the draft is 10 meters. A trapezoidal octahedral bridge is installed on the starboard ship.

Armor protection is stronger than that of the Doukui-class aircraft carrier. It is built completely according to the hull defense standards of the super battleship. Its waterline belt main armor is 350 mm thick, horizontal deck 300 mm, and key protection at key locations. The strongest is as high as 600 mm, which is equivalent to the front protection standard of the turret of the 16-inch giant cannon. It also uses the HM1 hot special steel specially developed by Datang Steel for aircraft carriers. It has many characteristics such as high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, and critical strike resistance. It uses 8-seater oil-fuel boilers, 4 sets of steam turbine systems, and is driven by 4 axes and 4 axes and 4 apexes. The output power reaches 250,000 horsepower, loads 7,500 tons of high-quality fuel, with a range of 10,000 nautical miles at 25 knots, 5,000 nautical miles at 30 knots, a cruise speed of 30 knots, and a maximum speed of 33 knots.

The flight deck area of ​​the Chiyou is larger than that of the Doukui-class aircraft carrier. It is equipped with 54 Raptor heavy carrier-based fighters standardly with three squadrons, 54 Hellfire heavy carrier-based bombers of three squadrons, 8 Fc-1 torpedo reconnaissance aircraft, and 5 Hellfire ships to fight with 5 Raptor ships in the hangar.

The air defense weapon system continues to be strengthened, manifested as the sixteen mk1 Vulcan dense array, which is 4 more than the Doukui-class aircraft carrier.

As for the brother ships of the Chiyou aircraft carrier, the three ships of the Yinglong and the Kuafu, their construction progress is almost about to be launched, and the tonnage is similar, with a different displacement of no more than 800 tons, indicating that the shipbuilding ability of the Tang Empire has reached a very high level to control the tonnage error between warships of the same level.

At around 9 a.m., Zhang Meng appeared at the bow of the Chiyou ship in full costume, and was surrounded by warm applause.

At this time, the Chiyou was just completed, the superstructure, military system, power and electrical system and the final installation project were carried out after the launch, and it would take about a year.

The General Administration of Shipbuilding and the Navy jointly presided over the launch ceremony. The only thing Zhang Meng had to do was to push the Chiyou into the sea with his own hands.

A rope was screwed down from the gantry crane, and a bottle of famous wine produced by the Tang Dynasty was tied to the end of the Tang Dynasty. Zhang Meng grabbed the bottle and threw it at the bow of the Chiyou ship.

With a bang, the wine bottle burst and the wine smelled loud.

Immediately afterwards, the rumbling sound came, and the warship Chiyou slowly moved down the slide rail, and soon the stern of the ship entered the water, and then the entire hull completely entered the water.

The applause rang again to celebrate the successful launch of the Chiyou Certificate. Afterwards, Zhang Meng made a routine speech. He had already had many experiences before. Zhang Meng himself no longer needed a secretary to prepare the manuscript, and he could recite it completely.

Zhang Meng watched the Chiyou battleship slowly sail towards the water basin under the tugboat, where he would complete the final construction.

"Have the Japanese Navy made any moves recently?"

Hearing Zhang Meng's inquiry, Li Haichen on the side replied: "At present, the Japanese Navy already owns four Osumi-class aircraft carriers, and there are four new aircraft carriers in the dock under construction, and the level and tonnage are not yet known. However, what is certain is that their four Yamato-class battleships are about to be launched."

Zhang Meng nodded and said, "It's earlier than expected. It seems that the Japanese are really angry. I'm afraid they want to avenge the next Tang-Japanese War."

Li Haichen smiled and said, "The Japanese Navy has only four aircraft carriers, and the Imperial Navy has already served eight aircraft carriers. If they knew that we did not build battleships but aircraft carriers, we will have twelve large aircraft carriers in a year. I don't know what their expressions will be."

Zhang Meng said: "Today, Chiyou was launched, and the Japanese will soon know that we were fooling them."

Li Haichen said: "Even if they know the facts, there is no way. Their Yamato-class battleship has been completed by more than half. If they are converted into an aircraft carrier halfway, it will probably be delayed for three years. During this period, we will leave them far behind in terms of the number of aircraft carriers. But..."

Li Haichen changed his tone and showed some concern, saying, "I heard that the Japanese Navy has modified a lot of escort aircraft carriers for commercial ships."

Zhang Meng nodded and said, "That's right! The Intelligence Bureau said that the Japanese Navy has modified more than 40 escort aircraft carriers."

Li Haichen frowned and said, "They want to win by quantity!"

Zhang Meng snorted coldly and said, "No matter how many there are, it's useless. The Japanese aircraft engines are a fatal shortcoming. Their carrier-based aircraft have not been able to meet the standards of competing with our aircraft carrier-based aircraft."

Li Haichen said worriedly: "But France-Japan has formed an alliance, and France is strong in this regard. If they help the Japanese, it will not take long before the Japanese Navy will have carrier-based fighter jets that can compete with us."

"Yes! France can indeed greatly improve the strength of the Japanese army! However, they would never have thought that we would take action first."
Chapter completed!