On the first Monday after the New Year, Napoleon delivered a new year's State of the Union address. Napoleon announced that France is now in new danger due to the destruction of some internal and external enemies. However, France is still the most powerful and wealthy country in the world. He and his government will definitely be able to overcome the current temporary difficulties and allow France to continue to be great.

Then Napoleon proposed a new fiscal year budget to the State Council. In this budget, Napoleon proposed to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and actively expand domestic demand to restore the French economy. As a concentrated reflection of "expanding domestic demand", France greatly increased military expenditure.

First, France has completed the operation of expanding the army by 500,000. Of course, Napoleon emphasized that the expansion of the army is not to undermine peace, but to defend peace. The newly expanded army will not be organized into combat troops, but will be incorporated into the newly formed engineering troops.

Of course, other countries do not believe this statement. What they do not believe is not that the French will form a huge new team of engineers, but that they all understand that even if these 500,000 are engineers, at least they can liberate a lot of combat troops.

However, the large amount of increased military expenditure was still increased to the Navy. In the new fiscal budget, the Navy received a large amount of shipbuilding expenses. It is said that the Navy had proposed a shipbuilding plan that it thought was scary. Then, after Navy Marshal Treville reported the plan to Napoleon, he was quickly sent back. Napoleon added a comment on the cover of his plan: "Small family!"

So Navy Marshal Treville made major changes to the plan and proposed a new goal, which is the so-called two strong goals: the French Navy must become the world's first navy, and the total displacement of the French Navy's warships must reach the sum of the total displacement of the ships of the second and third navy ships in the world.

Considering that the French Navy has an advantage in weapon quality, if there is such a quantity advantage, will the British live a life? Although the British have always had to admit that the French are slightly ahead of the UK in terms of technology, the British still have some advantages in scale. Considering that the British navy is more well-trained and has a higher command level (at least, the British themselves think so). Therefore, the British Navy is still the world's number one navy.

Especially last year, the British also launched an iron warship called "Queen Elizabeth". This warship is a more powerful warship than the French "Elizabeth" class battleship. Its displacement is even a little larger than the "Elizabeth" class battleship. The full load displacement of the "Queen Elizabeth" has exceeded 10,000 tons (in fact, the standard displacement is only less than 8,000 tons, which can only be said to be a little larger than the "Elizabeth" with a standard displacement of 7,000 tons. However, the British prefer to promote its full load displacement) and are equipped with more artillery and larger.

The "Queen Elizabeth" is equipped with six of the world's largest ten-inch rear-loaded rifled guns, each weighing 500 pounds. In comparison, the 150 mm gun of the "Engbelado" is simply a small toothpick and enoki mushroom. Of course, the British did not know that the French's 150 guns used a pipe retreat mechanism and a semi-automatic loading system, and the firing rate of each gun is as high as five to six rounds per minute. As for the British's 10-pound gun, it would be nice to have one round in five or six minutes.

In addition, the British claimed that their warships had thicker and stronger armor. This is also a fact, but the British did not mention the price they paid for, that is, the ship was nicknamed the "Iron Turtle" by the soldiers of the British Royal Navy. As a ship that is actually about the same size as the "Engelodes", it has more, heavier guns and thicker armor than the "Engelodes", so the displacement left to the power system is a bit insufficient. These displacements have to be weighed between the size of the coal compartment and the size of the steam engine. If the steam engine is large, the speed is guaranteed, but the range will be tragic. Therefore, in the end, the ship had to compromise and reduce the maximum speed to 12 knots.

The decline in speed will certainly bring various problems in combat, but the launch of this ship still excited the British. They felt that they had finally caught up with the French in naval technology.

However, when France revealed their new ambitious plan to build a ship, the British suddenly felt that I could not breathe.

The French plan to build a new warship called the "Augusto-class battleship". The standard displacement of this warship will reach 11,000 tons, the firepower of the equipment will be far greater than the "English-Berato-class", and the armor will be further strengthened, and the speed will continue to be maintained at the English-Berato-class level. The French intend to build six large docks specifically for the construction of this warship. They plan to produce 18 "Augusto-class battleships" in the next six years.

It would be fine if it was just a problem with the "August-class" battleship, but what's more serious is that the French's shipbuilding plan was fully rolled out. It also includes a 2,000-ton "Agility-class" unprotected fast cruiser, a 4,000-ton "Virgil-class" armored cruiser, and a 7,000-ton "Hermes-class" super cruiser with a displacement of 7,000-ton.

Among these warships, the two thousand tons of "Agility-class" unprotected cruisers are mainly used as colonial warships, highlighting the speed and endurance. The firepower and protection are only average, and the threat to Britain is limited. However, the four thousand tons of "Virgil-class" armored cruisers have a great threat to Britain. The displacement of 4 thousand tons makes it a fairly balanced warship. It has weak firepower, but it is more than enough to deal with the existing steel-corched steam cruisers with a displacement of about 2,000 tons in merchant ships and the British. The larger tonnage also makes them have a very good self-sustainment. These warships can easily cross the Atlantic Ocean, and with a speed of up to 18 knots, they can not catch up or run away. Their threat to British maritime channels is fatal. And this kind of fatal thing is to be built in fifty pieces in the French plan!

There is also the "Hermes-class" super cruiser, whose firepower is comparable to that of the "English-Berrado" and its speed is as high as 20 knots. Although the defense is a little worse, it is also a little worse than the "English-Berrado" battleship, which is better than any British warship except the "Queen Elizabeth".

Now the British are in a huge trouble. If they focus their strength on building the subsequent ships of the Queen Elizabeth, then they have no strength to deal with the challenges from "Virgil" and "Hermes". If they concentrate their strength to produce escort ships against the latter two, they must consider whether the French will directly use the "August-class" battleship to cover the French Army's landing in Britain.

Both of these results are unbearable for the British, so even if the current economic situation is not good, even if the British government is short of money, the British must immediately adjust their budget to meet the challenges from France.

The British Parliament held an emergency meeting, and Pete was elected as prime minister again and quickly passed a package of shipbuilding plans. The British threatened that every time the French launched a ton of warships, the British would launch a 15-ton warship. In order to support this huge shipbuilding plan, the British issued a large number of national debts and forced the people to purchase it. This naturally caused a large number of opposition in the UK.

Considering that patriotism is the equal right of every British, all British people should be equal in purchasing government bonds. Therefore, we must not use a discriminatory attitude towards a person because he has little wealth and reduce the amount of government bonds they should purchase. All British people, from the king to the workers in factories, should buy a government bond equally. What? Workers do not have savings to buy? It doesn’t matter, when the factory owner pays the wages, they will directly buy the government bonds in advance and then issue the government bonds to them.

This is not plunder, it is for their own good! You should know that these paupers always like to spend money randomly and do not know the importance of savings. Well, the interest rate of government bonds is a little higher than savings.

Of course, there is always a reason why poor people become poor, either greedy or lazy. For example, now they have obtained those national debts, and in order to buy a bite of food, they actually want to buy the national debts for money. Of course, the "good charity" who are willing to help people naturally extend their enthusiastic hands to them and buy the national debts in their hands with a discount of up to 20% off.

These poor people had no plans at all and soon finished their national debts. Then they began to starve. This hunger was caused by their own indecision, their financial management, their greed and laziness. However, not only did they not reflect on themselves, they would honestly wait for God's call in their own small and broken house, but they were like those mantis who blocked the car and caused trouble.

This is not the past. Britain was worried about foreign forces interfering. Now the French are too busy with themselves. At most, they can speak out. What else can they do? So the British directly used the army to suppress it.
Chapter completed!