Chapter 299 Crazy Shipbuilding Plan (Monthly Ticket Request!)

On September 11, 1911, under the appointment of Arthur, Hendrick, the first governor of the royal territory, officially went to Flores to take office.

The royal territory can be divided into three parts, namely the Nusa Tenggara Islands consisting of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and the Alor Islands, and the eastern part of Timor Island. The South-West Islands, the Leti Islands and the South-East Islands in the east consist of the Tanimbar Islands, the Kai Islands and the Aru Islands.

The Cocos Islands and Christmas Island in southern Java are also under Australasian control.

This also led to the formal formation of Australasia's northern island defense chain, which can effectively keep foreign enemies away from these islands and prevent the mainland from being covered by war.

The small city of Inde on the island of Flores was officially renamed Flores and served as the capital and administrative center of the royal domain.

Arthur planned to build a port city here, which would also become one of Australasia's naval stations.

Almost all large islands in the royal territory have tens of thousands of indigenous people. Because these indigenous people are too scattered, management is very troublesome.

Arthur gave Hendrick the first order, which was to concentrate the natives of the royal territory in cities on each island as much as possible to facilitate the subsequent transfer.

Yes, except for part of the indigenous labor force, the remaining indigenous people Arthur has no intention of letting them continue to stay in these islands.

In the future, only Australasians will be able to inhabit these archipelagos and islands. In addition to being consumed as labor force and cannon fodder, the rest will be expelled sooner or later.

The current indigenous people are still of some use to Australasia, but as the population of Australasia grows, some jobs will definitely be replaced by machinery.

Then these free laborers will not be very useful. Apart from being used as cannon fodder, they can only be expelled and let them go to the Dutch territory.

It took almost a week for the first and second divisions to make good progress in their attacks.

After leaving Flores, the First Division went to Sumba, Sumbawa and Lombok, and easily occupied these three large islands.

In addition to these three large islands, there are countless smaller islands surrounding it.

Attacking these islands is very troublesome and takes even more time than the three large islands.

The mission of the 1st and 2nd Divisions is only to capture and control those large islands. As for the surrounding small islands, the Ministry of Defense's plan is to hand them over to the 1st and 2nd Aboriginal Divisions.

The indigenous division has been training for a long time since its establishment, and now it is time for them to see blood.

Anyway, the soldiers of the indigenous division are basically composed of indigenous people. As long as the losses of mid-level and high-level officers are not large, the Ministry of National Defense and Arthur will not feel sorry for how many indigenous people die.

On September 15, 1911, after the 1st and 2nd Divisions completed their missions, they changed defenses with the 1st and 2nd Aboriginal Divisions respectively.

The 1st and 2nd Divisions returned to mainland Australasia, while the two Aboriginal divisions were to garrison the Crown lands.

The two indigenous divisions will be bounded by Flores Island, including Flores Island. The first indigenous division will be garrisoned in the west, and the many islands in the east will be garrisoned by the second indigenous division.

With the expansion of territory, the problem of insufficient troops in Australasia has emerged again.

Although Australasia currently has one Guards Division, four standing divisions and two Aboriginal divisions, they are still too few scattered across the millions of square kilometers of Australasia.

Australia and New Zealand, the core region of Australasia, have a combined land area of ​​nearly 8 million square kilometers, but the troops responsible for garrisoning it theoretically only have four standing divisions.

This resulted in the fact that if Australasia went to war with other countries, it would only be able to remove its two most elite standing divisions, the First and Second Divisions.

The two divisions combined only have 32,000 troops, which is enough for a small fight. But if it is to participate in a large-scale war, this small number of troops may only be able to barely defend the country.

With the good news from the Ministry of Civil Welfare in early September, after the total population of Australasia officially exceeded 10 million, Arthur also officially decided to launch military expansion operations in Australasia again and expand the number of troops to at least two Three Guards divisions, six regular divisions, four indigenous divisions, and two colonial garrison regiments, with a total strength of just over 220,000.

This also means that the total number of troops in Australasia will officially exceed 200,000, which is about twice what it was before the expansion.

Because there are four indigenous divisions with nearly 80,000 troops composed of indigenous people. In fact, Australasia's population of 10 million can only support an army of 120,000, and the burden is not that big.

Of course, the scale of military expansion was not directly decided by Arthur. The extent of the military expansion was decided after several days of thinking and discussion between Arthur, Kent, and current Defense Minister Raul.

Mainly because the Military Academy is currently able to train hundreds of army talents for Australasia every year. In addition, the army's previous reserves of talents are relatively sufficient, so it is not that difficult to directly expand the army by nearly 100,000.

After all, the war is approaching, so it is beneficial to expand the country's army in advance. Of course, Arthur will not deny that the alliance currently being planned in the Balkans makes Arthur a little envious. The armies of these small countries often number more than 100,000 or 200,000, but their population is less than half of Australasia.

On September 26, 1911, the announcement of the expansion of the army in Australasia was officially announced.

This can be said to have caused a thousand waves. The recruitment points in various cities in Australasia were almost full, and some people even lined up the night before in order to sign up early.

Employees of the Royal Consortium, soldiers, and officials should be the three most popular professions in Australasia.

As for the reason, it is actually very simple. Arthur's Royal Consortium is one of the few companies in Australasia that thoroughly implements the eight-hour work system.

Moreover, any employee of the factory of the Royal Consortium's enterprises does not worry about the problem of salary deduction and half treatment.

Because as long as such problems are found and reported, they will not only receive a lot of rewards, but also do not have to worry about losing their jobs.

Because as long as the report is true, the person reported will basically go to jail. Australasia's punishment for such behavior is still very severe, at least more than ten years in prison.

Not to mention the army, the welfare benefits of the army can even be said to be one of the best in Australasia, and there will be some small rewards and gifts on holidays.

Coupled with the pension system, reward system and military merit system for soldiers, this also makes soldiers a dream job for Australasians.

Unfortunately, the review of soldiers in Australasia is still relatively strict, and immigrants within at least three years cannot enter the army.

As for the officials at the end, there is no need to say more. No matter which country they are in, the treatment of officials is relatively good.

In addition to the salaries of officials, the welfare benefits and various policies of officials are also the most favorable, which also leads to the actual income of officials being much higher than the average annual income.

Even according to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, the average salary of all officials in Australasia is as high as 190 Australian dollars, which is four times the average income of Australasia.

Of course, this is actually because the vast number of ordinary officials have lowered the income of senior officials. Like all ministers of the cabinet government, the minimum income between them is more than 6,000 Australian dollars, plus various bonuses and welfare policies, the annual income is at least more than 10,000 Australian dollars.

However, although the income of officials in Australasia is very high, Australasia's anti-corruption and anti-bribery policies are also very strict.

Although Arthur has not organized a large-scale anti-corruption campaign so far, according to the laws of Australasia, embezzlement of more than 3,000 Australian dollars is a capital crime, and more than 1,500 Australian dollars is a life imprisonment.

The lightest punishment for embezzlement, that is, the actual embezzlement of no more than 200 Australian dollars, will also face dismissal and punishment, and the person and his immediate family members within three generations will be prohibited from serving as officials.

For officials, there is really no need to take such a big risk to embezzle. After all, the income of Australasia officials is not that low, and it is even high compared to some European countries.

What Arthur and the Ministry of Defense did not expect was that the sensation caused by this military expansion in the country led to a total of 500,000 registration requests received by the conscription offices in various places in just one week.

Arthur originally thought that it would take at least one month of conscription to select the 100,000 places for the expansion.

Now it seems that even if the conscription offices stop conscription now, these 500,000 registration requests are enough to screen out more than 100,000 qualified soldiers.

The Ministry of Defense's conscription plan was also decisively terminated. The next main task was to select 100,000 of the best soldiers from the more than 500,000 registration requests to join the army.

While Australasia began to expand its army significantly, the situation in the Balkan Peninsula in Europe finally ushered in changes.

First, before that, the residents of the Tripoli area occupied by Italy held an armed uprising.

This forced Italy to expand the number of expeditionary forces to 90,000 and brutally suppress the Turks in the occupied areas.

The development of the Italo-Turkish War has been somewhat unexpected by the Italians.

Although Italy won a good victory in the early stage of the war with advanced equipment, more troops and sufficient preparations.

But the war still entered a stalemate. The combat capability of the Italian army was not that strong, and the lack of coordination between the Italian troops made the combat effectiveness that could be exerted even worse.

But this news is a news that the Balkan countries and the Russian Empire are more willing to see.

As early as a month ago, Australasia had already delivered 20,000 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition out of the order of 50,000 rifles agreed with Nicholas II to the Far East according to Nicholas II's request.

This also made Arthur finally understand Nicholas II's intention, which was to sell Russian weapons to the Balkan Alliance and use the profits to buy German weapons from Australasia.

This is also why Nicholas II asked to transport weapons and equipment to the Far East.

Although the Russian Empire's move was somewhat unauthentic, there were only interests between countries.

Anyway, for Arthur, it didn't matter who these weapons were given to. What was important was that Australasia could open up the market for arms trade and clear out the inventory that had been produced before.

Yes, Arthur had been prepared for the next war a few years ago. This also led to the fact that although Australasia had not expanded its military in recent years, the production of military factories had no intention of stopping.

So far, the inventory of military factories includes hundreds of thousands of rifles and hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, as well as thousands of cannons and millions of shells.

In order to produce these weapons and equipment, Arthur has already invested a lot of money, waiting for the outbreak of World War I in the future, and making more profits with these weapons and equipment.

The Balkan Alliance in the Balkans has been formed for more than two months, and these small countries have been making intensive preparations.

If Arthur's expectations are met, the First Balkan War should break out soon. After all, Italy and Turkey are fighting fiercely at this time, and it is indeed the best opportunity for the Balkan Alliance to take action.

Before the outbreak of the Balkan War, there was another important news in Europe, that is, the new shipbuilding plan announced by the Germans.

Speaking of the shipbuilding plan, we have to mention the psychological blow caused by the Second Moroccan Crisis to the Germans.

Although the result of the crisis was that the Germans successfully obtained part of the French Congo colony, the close alliance between Britain and France in this crisis made the Germans realize that their biggest enemy has become Britain and France, not just the French.

If you make enemies with the British, the importance of the navy becomes unparalleled, which is also the real reason why the Germans announced a new shipbuilding plan.

So far, the Germans have a total of four Monarch-class battleships: Nassau, Westfriesland, Rheinland and Posen.

And they also have four battleships under construction: Helgeland (expected to be completed in October this year), Ostfriesland (expected to be completed in October this year), Rheinland (expected to be completed in November this year) and Posen (expected to be completed in March next year).

This also means that after the end of this year's shipbuilding plan, the Germans will have almost eight dreadnoughts.

But this obviously can no longer satisfy the Germans' appetite. After all, the number of dreadnoughts currently disclosed by the British has far exceeded that of the Germans.

The British dreadnoughts include the world's first dreadnought, the Dreadnought battleship, three Bellerophon-class battleships, three St. Vincent-class battleships, and two Mammoth-class battleships, a total of nine battleships. There is also a Neptune-class battleship under construction (expected to be completed in November this year).

If we count the so-called battlecruisers built by the British, the current main battleships of Britain have even reached 11.

Such a huge naval gap made the Germans worry about their navy and made William II determined to expand the naval construction plan.

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