Chapter 143 The Island-Macao Agreement and the Reactions of All Parties

"Dear Mr. Australian Foreign Minister, I am willing to reach a new naval ordering deal with your country. Your country's Duke-class armored cruiser meets our requirements for coastal protection. I wonder if your country can provide it to us 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 within two years.

Although these weapons and equipment can indeed be built and delivered successfully 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 and other materials including coal mines and iron ores.

There are various signs that the island nation will make a big move in two years' time, and even the island nation's plot is not small.

You must know that within East Asia, the only enemy that can allow island countries to mobilize troops like this 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 devote all its efforts, the interests of this country are currently divided among the major powers, and the powers will not agree to the island country appropriating 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 Only with more manpower." Australia's Deputy Foreign Minister nodded and said with a little embarrassment: "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 59,130 ​​pounds, and the preferential price for island countries is 52,000 pounds.

What the Australian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs said about returning to the original price level is actually to increase the price of each warship by 7,000 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 that 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? The Australian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs was silently calculating. Even if there is a certain expansion of the shipyard, the profit of each armored cruiser will be more than 20,000 pounds.

If the island country can customize more than four armored cruisers at one time, the total profit from this order can exceed 80,000 pounds, which can be enough to make up for the cost of Australia's naval expansion.

These savings can also be used in other places to contribute to Australia's development and construction.

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

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

In fact, whether it is Australia or an island country, a small coastal protection frigate will not be taken seriously.

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

Giving such a warship to the island country can not only confirm the theory proposed by the island country that a friend of a friend is a friend, but also allow the island country to feel confident in conducting warship transactions with Australia. It can also look good in terms of face, allowing the politicians and people of the island country to also All satisfied.

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

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

What did you get in exchange? After the birth of the dreadnought, even the brand new pre-dreadnoughts lost their luster and room for resistance in front of the dreadnought.

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 knowledge in schools. If there is no accumulation of knowledge for students through basic education, and directly allowing a person who has never studied to go to university to study, it will be tantamount to undermining the success of the school and achieving nothing.

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 the dreadnought?

Although the dreadnought is a new type of warship that was born after all-round technical improvements to the former dreadnoughts, almost all technologies have been reformed and upgraded, which made the dreadnoughts crush the former dreadnoughts.

But without the pre-dreadnoughts, the birth of the dreadnoughts would have ceased to exist.

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

By selling battleships to foreign countries, not only can they earn a lot of profits, but they can also allow these experts to build battleships and become familiar with the technologies they have learned from German experts.

Australia will naturally make a profit, and the island countries will not lose, at least until the birth of the dreadnought.

This kind of arms deal is a consensual one. You can't complain about being cheated just because the arms will be eliminated in the future.

On November 19, 1902, after a long period of discussions and visits, the island country’s diplomatic delegation finally confirmed the final order for the arms trade.

This is a document that includes one battleship, four armored cruisers, one coastal protection frigate (donated), 20,000 Gew98 rifles, one hundred German-made Maxim heavy machine guns, and thirty 105 mm grenade guns. The procurement plan includes a series of light and heavy weapons and warships such as Lupp howitzers, tens of millions of rounds of rifles, heavy machine gun bullets, and 10,000 rounds of artillery shells.

These weapons can even directly equip a navy among the top 20 in the world and an elite army of 20,000 people with powerful firepower.

What's more, the island country's military is already very powerful. The navy is equipped with five battleships purchased from the United Kingdom and one battleship captured in previous naval battles. There are six ships in total, ranking among the top ten in the world.

As for the army, with its sufficient population and militarism, the island country can easily arm a huge army of millions of people. It can even arm an army of more than three million people under the premise of shaking the country's foundation.

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

Resource imports are not just simple coal mines and iron ores, but also include a series of metal minerals and resources such as oil, nickel, and aluminum.

This resource import and export treaty stipulates that Australia must provide at least 100,000 tons of mineral resources to island countries every year, and the sales price of mineral resources must not exceed twice the market price.

In order to compensate Australia for its output in minerals, 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 own domestic mineral resources that can be found everywhere in exchange for some foreign exchange. This foreign exchange can also purchase more advanced industrial equipment from Europe and accelerate the progress of Australia's industrialization and technologicalization.

At the same time, the island country can also change the current situation of lack of domestic mineral resources to a certain extent, so that its domestic industry, which has been somewhat sluggish and stagnant due to limitations in mineral resources, can make progress and breakthroughs.

The Arms Trade Treaty and the Mineral Resources Import and Export Treaty constitute the general treaty signed by the island country’s diplomatic mission and Australia, which is a 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 arms exports.

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

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

The United States and the Russian Empire are also considered neighbors, and even the closest land border between the two countries is less than four kilometers.

Of course, the situation in which these two countries are adjacent was also brought about by the Tsarist Empire. The territory of the present United States, the land of Alaska, was a colony that once belonged to the Russian Empire.

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

It is this state that is less than four kilometers away from the easternmost island in the Far East of the Russian Empire, which makes the Russian Empire and the United States become neighboring countries.

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

But all parts of the world have basically been carved up by European powers. No matter how hard the United States tries, it can only snatch a little food from already weakened countries like Spain.

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 Europe, which is now the most prosperous and developed. 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 turn its attention to Asia across the Pacific, and fight a war with Spain. The seizure of the Philippines is the epitome of the United States plan.

But in Asia, the United States also faces several relatively powerful enemies. In northern Asia, the Tsarist Empire straddling eastern Europe and easternmost Asia is one of the old powers in Europe 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 great powers, and the United States can only get a piece of the pie and cannot realize its own interests.

Further south is Southeast Asia and Oceania. Whether before or now, most of these two places are untouchable by the United States.

Whether it is the colonies of the British Empire or the Dutch Southeast Asian colonies supported by many powers, as well as Australia, which has good relations with the British Empire and the German Empire, they are all entities that the United States cannot afford to offend for the time being.

Even though the United States' industry and economy are now very developed, its military technology is still relatively backward, and it is not yet able to compete with 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 troublemaker.

At this point, the British Empire and the United States had almost the same purpose. That is to support and support a country with certain military strength to confront the hegemonic countries in Asia without being able to intervene directly.

It can not only weaken the hegemony of Asian hegemonic countries, but also allow the power of the British Empire and the United States to be better asserted in Asia, and it can also avoid dragging down one's own country and not being involved in the whirlpool of war.

Judging from the current situation, the Russian Empire is obviously much stronger than the island country. This is why the British Empire, known as Europe's troublemaker, is not opposed to this cooperation.

In addition to the British Empire, another German Empire that had good cooperative relations with Australia did not object to this.

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

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

France did not support the Tsarist Russian Empire in focusing more attention on the Far East, which also gave the German Empire an opportunity to win over the Tsarist 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 between the conflicts between the German Empire and France, then the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire will only have to face one enemy, and that is France.

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

If it were just a duel between Germany and France, the Germans would be confident that history would repeat itself and the French would feel the loss of territory and large compensation payments.

Therefore, the expansion of the island nation's power is what the German Empire wants to see. After all, the stronger the island country becomes, the more Tsarist Russia needs the support of other countries, right?

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